Tim was in the stable with the mare when she arrived. She could see his broad back through the open door. A sudden eruption of butterflies in her stomach made her skittish like the mare had been, was it only yesterday morning? It made her not want to face him, not just yet. As she watched him moving about the stable, heard him talking softly to the horse, the ache she felt was a very human one, one that sprang from being alive and not wanting to be alone and all the other things that living entailed. It was not the fiery burn that accompanied the presence of spirits. It felt cleaner somehow, more sane. But on some deeper level, it felt at least as frightening, so she swallowed hard and turned quietly toward her cottage.

She was half way up the porch steps when she changed her mind, squared her shoulders and headed for the stables.

When he saw her, he surprised her by scooping her into his arms, holding her tight, so tight she could barely catch her breath. A sense of relief rushed over her, a feeling that she wasn’t in this alone, and she held him tight right back.

‘I was so scared,’ he spoke against her ear, his voice thick with emotions. ‘I didn’t know what they’d do to you, if they’d follow you, and I didn’t know where you’d gone or where to look for you. I couldn’t bear the thought of it happening to you. What happened to Fiori.’

She said nothing; she wasn’t sure she could speak without blubbering.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘This is not how I wanted it to be. This is not what I wanted you to know about me.’

‘What?’ She pulled away enough to look up into his eyes, ‘Tim I don’t blame you for any of this. I still don’t know what to think about it all. I don’t know …’ Her voice drifted off. ‘Do you think we should go to the police?’

‘And tell them what?’ he said stepping back. ‘We’re the only ones who know. We’re the only ones who can tell they’re dead. To anyone else Fiori and Sky look as real and alive as you and I do, as real as that Anderson bloke you let plough you. He must have been impressed, the way he fought me.’

This time the clench in her stomach was anger. ‘You son of a bitch!’ She shoved him with the flat of her hand and he yielded, perhaps too shocked to do anything else. She shoved him again. ‘What the hell business is it of yours who I let plough me anyway, and for your information, yeah, he liked it just fine. Like you care.’ She shoved him again, and the mare looked up from munching her breakfast. ‘Lest we forget that you ploughed Fiori. Oh that’s right, I forgot that was different. She wasn’t dead when you fucked her, so that makes it all right.’

She saw his face darken, and in her own mind’s eye, she saw the woman’s tragic death, and for a split second she wished she hadn’t said anything, but damn it, he was such a bastard. ‘First you treat me like I don’t exist, then you go all big brother on me like I’m too delicate and soft-brained to take care of myself. Well I have news for you, Tim Meriwether, I was taking care of myself for a

long time before you decided I needed looking after.’ She shoved again, and this time he grabbed her with such force that she felt the bones in her neck pop.

With her forward momentum, he stumbled over an uneven paving stone, lost his footing and went over backward into a manger full of fresh hay, pulling her on top of him.

Before she could shove and claw her way to her feet, He grabbed her around the waist and rolled, pinning her beneath the weight of his body. He gave her no time to think about it, but pulled her into a bruising kiss, forcing her lips apart, probing her hard pallet with his dexterous tongue, biting her lower lip before he came up fighting for the breath to speak. ‘I think about you a lot, Marie,’ His chest rose and fell in hungry gasps. ‘But I promise you, none of those thoughts were even remotely brotherly.’

She bucked underneath him and clawed at his shirt. ‘Then do something about it, damn it, and stop toying with me.’ Several buttons popped and flew across the stable floor. He forced her legs apart with his knee, moving it up to rub against the crotch of her jeans. She shoved his shirt open and arched up to him as he pushed her T-shirt up and manoeuvred and tugged, forcing her breasts free from her bra into his splayed hands and hungry lips.

She fumbled with the fly of his jeans, sliding an anxious hand into his boxers. He huffed a breathless grunt, and the muscles low in his stomach tensed as she closed her fingers around his engorged penis and began to stroke.

He had just began the anxious efforts with her own fly when suddenly the stable door slammed shut, and the light bulb overhead exploded in a shower of fine glass plunging the two into total darkness.

Marie yelped, and Tim cursed. As they fought their way to their feet, the mare screamed, and they could hear her struggling.

Tim vaulted over the manger’s edge seconds before Marie, calling back to her. ‘Get the door. Get it open.’

Struggling to secure her jeans with one hand, Marie felt her way along the perimeter of the stable toward the door. The relief was short-lived when her fingers closed around the handle, and it wouldn’t budge.

‘It’s locked,’ she shouted above the desperate cries of the mare.

‘What do you mean, it’s locked,’ Tim shouted back. ‘It doesn’t have a lock. It can’t be locked.’

‘I’m telling you it won’t open,’ she yelled back, feeling an icy chill blasting her from behind. With one final tug, the door gave and she tumbled backward on her arse. The sharp knife-edge of light that shot through the darkness was blinding, like a flashbulb going off, leaving a deep bruised after image dancing in front of her face, an after image of Deacon.

She cried out and crab walked backwards, as he stepped toward her, unfurling his bullwhip, in what seemed like endless slow motion.

Then from somewhere beyond the blinding light, Tim grabbed her beneath the arm pits and hauled her to her feet, pulling her protectively to him, manhandling her until his back took the brunt of the whip’s lash, as it cracked like thunder even above the horse’s terrified screams.

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