Every Breath She Takes

by Norah Wilson

  Every Breath She Takes

  Norah Wilson

  AmazonEncore (2012)

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  Previously published as Lauren’s Eyes.

  “Ultra-sexy, heart-pumping suspense and adventure.” – Julianne MacLean, USA Today best-selling author

  “Sexy, gritty and thrilling.” – Joss Ware, award-winning author of Night Forbidden

  Veterinarian Lauren Townsend has good reason for hiding her psychic ability. Not only did her “freakishness” earn her pariah status in the small town where she grew up, it cost her a fiancé and her faith in love. When Lauren foresees a murder—through the killer’s eyes—she traces the victim to a sprawling ranch, never guessing what waits for her…

  Cal Taggart’s rugged ranch life doesn’t need any more complications. His stubborn determination cost him his marriage, and now may cost him his livelihood. But then beautiful Lauren enters his corral…with danger close behind. And Cal wants nothing more than to protect her. They can’t deny their intense attraction. Nor do they want to. What begins as a fling with no strings becomes a fight for survival—and for true love.

  About the Author

  Norah Wilson is the author of romantic suspense novels Guarding Suzannah, Protecting Paige,and Saving Grace. She is a three-time finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart contest and won Dorchester Publishing’s New Voice in Romance award. Under the pseudonym Wilson Doherty, she and her writing partner, Heather Doherty, write young adult paranormal fiction. A native Canadian, Wilson lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, with her family.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright ©2012 by Norah Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612184685

  ISBN-10: 1612184685

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  She ignored the first tingle. After all, she’d been bent over this operating table for what felt like hours.

  Then the second hot shard of sensation shot up her neck. Her hands stilled over the spread-eagled tabby whose abdominal incision she had almost finished closing. Please, God, not here. Not now.

  Her prayer went unheeded. In the time it took to form the plea, she felt her scalp prickle. Lord, she’d have to hurry. She’d barely have time to get home before that damnable shower of stars started appearing in the periphery of her vision, eventually narrowing it to a tunnel. Then the tingling in her scalp would graduate to a band of pain…

  “Lauren, is something wrong?”

  Lauren Townsend glanced at her assistant, Heather Carr. “Migraine,” she lied. She gestured to the patient on the table. “This’ll have to be the last one tonight. Could you duck out and have Karen break the news to the waiting room while I finish up?”

  Heather grimaced. “They won’t like it.”

  No, they wouldn’t, but it was elective stuff. “Tell them I’ll make it up Thursday night, for half price.” Already her tongue was getting thick. She glanced at Heather. “Could you look after our post-op patients if I take off?”

  “No problem.”

  Thank God! “Okay, then could you have Karen call me a cab too? I don’t think I’m up to driving.”

  Heather’s gaze sharpened. “You sure you’re all right? I mean, do you think maybe you should go to the emergency room?”

  “I’m sure,” Lauren said firmly. “It’s nothing that lying down in a dark room won’t cure.” Well, at least that was the truth.

  Heather nodded and went to deliver the bad news.

  Lauren was removing the anaesthetized cat’s restraints just as her assistant returned.

  “Riot averted,” Heather announced. “And I see you’re finished here, which is perfect timing. Your taxi just rolled up.”

  “Oh, good!” Lauren peeled her surgical gloves off and discarded them.

  “Well, go on. Scoot.” Heather moved in and gently scooped up the cat’s limp body. “We’ve got everything under control here. And if anything does come up, I’ll call Peter.”

  The ink had barely dried on Peter Markham’s degree, but he was an excellent vet. And he wouldn’t mind being called in. “Thanks, Heather.”

  Twelve minutes later, she stumbled across the threshold of her house. Closing the door, she sagged against it while her two dogs, Gabe and Cissy, jostled for her attention. She’d made it. Just. Another reason to be grateful that she lived so close to her clinic in this Halifax suburb.

  “Sorry, guys,” she told the dogs. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”

  Rubbing damp palms on her khakis, she pushed herself away from the door. Her legs felt shaky, but they carried her. The weird tunnel vision didn’t help. It made her feel like the walls were crowding in on her as she went down the hall to her bedroom. Shutting her door on the dogs, she crawled onto the bed to wait. Her heart pounded with dread. Deep breaths, she told herself as the paralysis stole into her limbs. You’re okay.

  Yeah, right.

  Abruptly her vision went completely black. For a terrifying moment, the sound of her own harsh breathing was her only anchor in the utter, lonely darkness. Then the vision exploded on her consciousness.

  A blond woman dressed in Western wear stood on a ridgetop, staring out across a canyon. In the background, the sun brushed the horizon, staining the sky pink. A lovely woman against a lovely backdrop. But Lauren had seen this particular silent picture twice before.

  Watch carefully. Check the background this time.

  She forced herself to “look” past the woman, if that was the right word for it. Mountains rose against the sky, blue smudges in the distance. Over the woman’s shoulder, Lauren noted four peaks that aligned themselves like bumps on a dragon’s back. That’s good. You can remember that.

  If only she could turn and scan the area. But she couldn’t. She saw only what he saw, condemned to watch through his eyes.

  Then the woman turned. She was even more beautiful than Lauren remembered. Her green eyes radiated a sultry welcome, a complete and total assurance in her own sex appeal that few women projected. Then the woman’s lips moved as she mouthed a greeting.

  She’s not talking to you, Lauren reminded herself.

  Helpless, Lauren watched gloved hands rise into her line of sight, one on either side, as though they were her own appendages. No, please, she begged. But it was no use. She longed to close her eyes, flinch away, but she couldn’t. The man’s hands skimmed up the woman’s arms, then closed suddenly over her throat. The sensual welcome on the blonde’s face turned to surprise, then panic, then sheer terror.

  As the woman fought for her life, Lauren fought to distance herself. Fought and lost. Stomach revolting, she watched the life squeezed out
of the beautiful stranger. Watched it up close and personal, as though the murderer’s hands were Lauren’s own.

  Then it was over. As always, the link began deteriorating immediately, but this time Lauren clung to it. She ignored the shutdown signals from her battered mind and held on. Show me something! she screamed silently.

  He did.

  Drawing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he extracted one. Calmly, as though he hadn’t just committed murder, he produced a book of matches. Lauren shook, but the killer’s work-gloved hands were steady as he lit his cigarette. Steady enough that Lauren had plenty of time to read the logo on the matches.

  Foothills Guest Ranch.

  He tossed the matches to the ground and wheeled away.

  She let go then, exhausted, and started the slow climb back. At periodic intervals she tested her limbs until at last they obeyed. She let herself out of the bedroom and stumbled to her office, with little Cissy yapping at her feet and Gabe padding calmly along behind her. Anxiety gnawed at her as she flicked on her computer and waited for it to boot and for the wireless modem to connect. Another delay while the search engine loaded. Finally she plugged in “Foothills Guest Ranch” and almost sobbed her relief when she struck pay dirt on the first try.

  Foothills Guest Ranch, Borland, Alberta. The logo was a stylized mustang over the ranch’s name in black “wanted poster” lettering. This was it, exactly the same as the one on the book of matches! For the first time since this particular vision had begun three weeks ago, she felt a stir of hope. Maybe she could do something this time.

  Her next thought deflated her. It was just a book of matches. There was no guarantee the murder would happen anywhere near the Foothills Guest Ranch. There was no telling how far those matches might have traveled. Yet the rugged country she’d glimpsed in the background couldn’t be anything other than the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, could it?

  Her meager hope fizzled again as another thought struck her. Though she made the season to be high summer, who was to say it would be this summer? What if the murder wasn’t destined to take place for years? What if she were doomed to living this horror for at least another year? She shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  No, she had to act, and act now. She wouldn’t wait around until she read about the crime in the Globe and Mail. Not this time.

  She chewed her lip. Maybe she should call Hal.

  Hal—Detective Harold Parks—was a cold case investigator with the Halifax Regional Police; he would listen to her. What’s more, he’d believe her. After what had happened with the DiGiacinto girl’s cold case, he would always believe her. Too bad for both of them that her visions hadn’t been able to help any of the victims escape their fate. She sometimes thought that the grizzled old detective was more tortured by that failure than she was.

  No, she decided. As much as she’d like to talk to someone, she wouldn’t bother Hal with this. There was nothing he could do about a crime that hadn’t happened yet, in a jurisdiction thousands of miles away. It would only add to the burden that seemed to weigh heavier on his shoulders with the passing years.

  And it went without saying that she couldn’t call her sister, Danielle. Six years older than Lauren, Danny had been permanently scarred by the mortification Lauren had brought down on her family so long ago. Lauren had been just five years old when she’d innocently tugged on the cuff of a police officer’s uniform to get his attention so she could tell him that Arianna DiGiacinto had been strangled by her own mother, not the shaggy-haired, bearded stranger on those wanted posters. That bombshell had drawn a hysterical backlash that Lauren’s parents had spent a long while living down. But there had been a silver lining—her mother’s wailing and her father’s grim, silent disappointment had actually banished the visions. Well, for almost two decades, anyway.

  Yes, it was just over nineteen years between the DiGiacinto vision and the next one. And the return of the visions had been triggered by Detective Harold Parks.

  Detective Parks had been sent to molder away his last two years before pension in the cold case section and had picked up the DiGiacinto file. Mrs. DiGiacinto had answered the door when he’d called to do a routine interview. He’d hardly gotten the words out that he wanted to talk to her about her daughter’s cold case when the cancer-stricken Ginevra DiGiacinto confessed right there on her doorstep. Lauren had read about it in the papers two days later, and everything she’d managed so successfully to forget had come flooding back. As had the visions.

  She’d tried a couple of times to reach out to other “psychics.” In her desperation, she’d hoped they could somehow illuminate or amplify her visions, or be able to see them from a different perspective that might then help her find and save her victims. The first time she’d tried to connect with another psychic was shortly after the visions had resumed. She’d been so young then, still at college. She’d phoned and made an appointment, but when she’d gone around to the woman’s shop, she’d chickened out. The next time, she tried it by telephone, choosing a psychic whose ad she found online. She’d made the appointment and prepaid for it (perhaps she wasn’t the only person to have lost courage before an appointment). The lady had seemed nice enough, but as Lauren had fumbled and stumbled to say what was on her mind, she’d launched into a “reading.” She told Lauren that she could see her spirit guides—there were three of them and they manifested as giant butterflies—and proceeded to start giving her advice based on what these butterflies communicated to her. Needless to say, Lauren had wrapped that conversation up without broaching her problem.

  No, she was in this alone.

  As though sensing the gloomy cast of her thoughts, Gabe plunked his head in her lap. She smiled and rubbed his ear as she studied the webpage on her screen.

  The ranch looked gorgeous, she had to admit. From what she gleaned, it was a real ranch with a real cow-calf operation to which this guest ranch sideline had been added within the last year. It looked, in fact, like a pretty good spot to spend a vacation. All those happy, smiling people on horseback, sharing their love of riding and the outdoors. God, how long had it been since she’d ridden a horse?

  For that matter, how long had it been since she’d had a vacation?

  Too long. She’d been saving her money for a wedding and saving her vacation time for a honeymoon. But neither had come to pass, so she’d thrown herself into her work instead.

  You could take a vacation now. The idea drifted through her mind and snagged there.

  Yes, dammit, she could. She could register at the Foothills Guest Ranch for a nice, long vacation. And with a little luck and a lot of digging, maybe she could figure out who that beautiful woman was in time to save her.

  Before she let herself get too carried away with the idea, she picked up the phone and called Peter Markham.

  “Hey, Lauren, what’s up?”

  “How would you like more hours at the clinic?”

  A pause. “How many more?”

  “Full time, for two, maybe three weeks? Possibly a little longer. Starting midweek next week or thereabouts. I’m not exactly sure yet. I don’t have my tickets.”

  “Full time? I’d love to! I’m on call evenings for Crowley and McFarlane, but that’s just the first four days. Piece of cake.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it, Peter.”

  “Not as much as I’ll appreciate the hours,” he replied. “But I hope there’s nothing wrong?”

  “No, nothing wrong. Just taking a long-overdue vacation.” She smiled, hoping he’d hear it in her voice and be reassured. “Thanks for having my back. We can talk about it more on Monday,” she said and hung up.

  There. The biggest obstacle was handled.

  Another call to her neighbor Mrs. Greenfield—a conversation that took considerably longer than the last one—and mail pickup and plant watering was handled. That just left the dogs, and she could board them at work. Such were the perks of being the owner.

  Quickly, before doubt could se
t in, she went back to her computer and registered at the Foothills Guest Ranch for a three-week stay and booked her flight. If she had to extend her stay, so be it.

  The moment she finished the task and leaned back in her chair, the details of the vision played in her mind again. Her psyche—and her stomach—rebelled again, but this time she didn’t feel quite so helpless.

  “You won’t get her,” she vowed, then shivered as a faint echo of evil reverberated in her mind.

  “Smile, Boss. Here comes another busload of wranglers.”

  Cal Taggart scowled at his foreman, Jim Mallory. “Would-be wranglers, you mean. Cripes, I wish there was another way outta this mess. I’m not cut out for this, Jim.”

  “It’s not such a bad bargain, I don’t reckon, long as you can hang on to the ranch. Whatever it takes, right?”

  Cal grimaced as Jim threw his own words back at him. “Right.” Whatever it takes. That was his credo, sure enough. Whatever it took to amass thousands of acres of prime ranch land. Whatever it took to secure the best breeding stock. And now, whatever it took to keep the whole damned shooting match from falling into the clutches of the bank.

  “Whatever it took” these days meant throwing his back into making this guest ranch a success. He’d been open to the public for four months now, and bookings were getting better each week. If he could just get it to take off, the profits would help his cattle ranch through this downturn.

  Downturn, hell. His eyebrows drew together in a fierce frown. He’d had the worst run of misfortune of his life this summer. A grassfire in June claimed three head, although in truth he counted himself lucky. It might have destroyed his entire herd if it hadn’t been caught in time. Then what must have been lightning strikes claimed a few more cattle.

  But in the scheme of things, those were just aggravations. The real problem was that farm incomes had hit their lowest point since the Depression. Foreign subsidies, low commodity prices, you name it. Which is why he was stuck playing to the tourists.