LITMIR.BIZ

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time she had just cratered the trust in herself that she had worked so hard to regain.

      He was right about one thing: she felt as if a rug had been pulled out from beneath her feet, and worse, he’d seen her take the pratfall. Not even Hector had ever been faced with that, and they’d lived together.

      This guy was a stranger who was now more intimately knowledgeable about her than a guy she had thought she might marry.

      Lovely.

      He brought out a well-worn pack of cards and they sat at a rough wooden table to play pinochle. They hadn’t been playing very long, however, when he said, “You’re worrying. I can feel it. Worrying isn’t going to help.”

      She struggled to meet his gaze. “You don’t understand.”

      “Then tell me.”

      She resisted the thought of exposing herself in that way. He’d seen too much already, and she didn’t want to lay it all out there where it would be painful even if he didn’t react the wrong way. This wasn’t a therapy session, after all.

      “I’m fine,” she said firmly. “Just fine. It won’t happen again.”

      He frowned faintly but didn’t press her. “I went over to pay Buddy a visit. I don’t think he’ll bother you again.”

      “Thank you.” She hesitated. “It wasn’t that scary, you know. I’ve been through far worse. It was just unexpected and weird.”

      “I’ll give you that.”

      “I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble.”

      He put his cards down and went to get the tin coffeepot from the stove. He topped off both their mugs before putting it back. “Buddy may be causing himself some trouble.”

      “What do you mean?” Interested, and now on relatively safe ground, she was able to look at him as he once again sat across from her.

      He gave a small shrug. “Well, if I knew exactly what was going on, I’d have a better answer for you. Some things have changed at his place, not for the better, it seems to me. Right now I can’t tell you much except that I did ask the sheriff to pay a visit to get a sense of things.”

      Sky hadn’t considered that. “Jurisdictional problems?”

      “Buddy’s not part of my forest.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “I can involve myself only when he does something outside his own land.”

      “What didn’t you like?”

      He sighed, reached for his cup and sipped coffee. “He’s got a new best friend, a guy I didn’t like on sight. That doesn’t happen often. Nor am I usually greeted with an AR-15 when I visit.”

      Sky felt a cold twist of apprehension. “That’s not good.”

      “It might mean nothing. Buddy’s a prepper.”

      “What’s that?”

      “Oh, he’s been preparing for Armageddon or the end of the world, or revolution for a few years now. A surprising number of people do, so by itself it doesn’t mean much. Storing up food, learning to live off the land, all that. It’s a quirk, but it’s a harmless quirk for the most part, or at least I thought so with Buddy. He showed me around a couple of years ago, and he’s pretty damn self-sufficient. I was impressed, honestly, although it’s not a way I’d choose to go.”

      “But you must be pretty much self-sufficient, as much time as you spend in the woods.”

      His smile widened a bit. “I can get by, but that’s short-term. Buddy’s prepared to get through an entire year.”

      “Wow. That must be expensive.”

      “Some of it is,” he allowed. “But Buddy hunts, makes his own jerky and cans a lot of the produce from his garden. It’s quite an operation and keeps the family awfully busy.” He gave a laugh. “If I were Buddy’s wife, I’d probably be demanding overtime pay.”

      “I can see that.” She felt an answering smile curve her mouth. “Children?”

      “Six. They all work hard, too, and they’re homeschooled. Nice kids.”

      She thought it over. “I don’t see anything wrong with that, if that’s the way you want to go. God knows I’ve seen enough people suffer because they couldn’t be self-sufficient.”

      His smile faded. “You’ve been in war, right?”

      She nodded. “Iraq.”

      “Me, too. See, that’s what bothers me about preppers.”

      “How so?”

      “They really don’t know what they’re proposing to survive. Buddy might do better than some because he’s in the middle of nowhere, out of line of fire except for nature. But so many of these folks really don’t have the least idea how damaging and chaotic a real war is. How little safety there is for anyone. If we have some really big catastrophe, nobody’s going to be safe. And if any of us are going to survive, we’re not going to do it alone in a mountain stronghold.”

      “Probably not,” she admitted. “I’ve talked to enough Afghanistan vets. To be safe, you have to keep moving constantly. Buddy looks pretty well planted in place.”

      “Exactly. Anyway, Buddy, if he ever needs to, could probably survive some relatively small social upheaval, but anything major...it’s going to be rough on anyone. And I’ve seen enough of the world to know that survival is more likely when you have a community working together. People helping people, not fighting each other.”

      She nodded agreement. “But now he’s got this friend who worries you.”

      “Yeah. He goes by the name of Cap.”

      Sky chewed her lower lip. “That’s an unusual name. Do you suppose it’s a rank?”

      “I’m wondering. And he was the one with the AR-15.”

      She met those gray eyes again and felt an unwanted shock of desire. Where had that come from? It was the last thing she needed. She dragged her gaze away and told herself to cut it out. “Militia?” she asked finally, hoping her voice sounded normal.

      “It’s possible.” Craig put his cup down and rested his elbows on the table. “Thing is, I don’t know. I didn’t like the look of this Cap, I didn’t like being welcomed with a semiautomatic rifle, and I didn’t like the fact that he’s got trip wires outside his fence now.”

      Sky felt color draining from her face. “Trip wires?” She whispered the words. Such things evoked horrifying memories for her. She battered down the blackness that tried to swamp her.

      “I reminded him they’re legal only as an alarm. He said that’s all they are, but I don’t know. A year ago, I’d have believed it. Right now, with Buddy getting paranoid enough to bother you and some campers a few weeks ago, I’m not sure of anything anymore. Hence a visit from the sheriff. Sky, maybe you should think about painting somewhere else, away from Buddy.”

      She thought about it. She thought about it hard because her first instinct was to get stubborn. She didn’t run from things, but this wasn’t her fight. She’d come out here for peace, not a battle.

      But she had run away today inside herself, and she didn’t like that. She had to do something to prove to herself that she could handle things, even the Buddy Jacksons of the world.

      “No,” she said finally. “I’m going to paint where I want to paint, and he’d better not bother me again.”

      “You don’t have to prove anything.”

      “Yes, actually I do. To myself.”

      Their gazes met again and locked. Craig returned her stare for a while before finally compressing his lips and nodding. “Okay. He probably won’t bother you again anyway. He

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