Free Peppermint Creek Inn by Jan Springer Page A

smoke, he just did.
    Adrenaline surged into his limbs urging him to run. To find her. To protect her from danger. Yet he couldn’t bolt out of his room blindly, possibly rushing headlong into the enemy. He’d be useless if he got caught.
    And Sara would be dead.
    Despite the panic edging into his system, he knew he needed to stay calm. Assess the situation. Proceed with caution.
    Thoroughly expecting trouble, the tiny hairs on his neck prickled to attention as he stumbled naked to the open window where the shadow had stood only moments earlier.
    Leaning his bandaged hands on the inside sill, he pressed his face against the screened window and looked out. Nothing moved. Only the tall blades of green grass in the lush meadow swayed as the wind sailed against them.
    If anyone had been here, they’d gone around the side of the house.
    Grabbing the first thing he could, a pink towel draped over a nearby chair, he wrapped it securely around his hips. If he had to make a run for it, at least he’d be presentable to the surrounding forest.
    With a trembling hand, he reached out and grabbed the steak knife on the twig table, then limped across the floor to inch the door open slowly. Seeing no one, he tiptoed into the quiet hallway.
    The unmistakable aroma of fresh baked bread filtered into his nostrils. His stomach growled in hunger, but it was instantly pushed aside by the acrid taste of fear in his mouth as he moved quickly down the hallway and into a cozy living room. He barely registered the pull-out sofa with the neatly made up bed before he headed for the adjoining kitchen and stopped short as he spotted the giant sheet of plywood nailed over the broken window. Had Sara done the repairs herself? Or had she asked someone to come out? Perhaps that’s who’d been at his window. A handyman taking a drag.
    But where was she?
    Had she taken off? Had his confession of being a criminal frightened her and she’d decided to hoof it out to the highway and get the cops? Had she left him a sitting duck for the cops to finish the job?
    Maybe she was on a personal basis with them. She’d said her husband had been a cop. What about the cop who’d been racing down the road? He was the same one who’d been holding him in that basement. What had he been doing on her road? Looking for her instead of him? Warning her about him?
    Running a shaky hand through his scruffy beard, he shook his head in denial.
    No!
    No way. She hadn’t even been here when the cop had come calling. Besides, she’d believed him when he told her they wanted him dead.
    So where was she?
    The familiar panic sifted through him again but he forced himself to hold it in check. Pushing against the screen door, he inched it open and winced as it sent out a violent creak.
    Hesitantly he stepped onto the veranda and he sucked in a breath at the carnage that greeted him.
    It looked like a bomb had exploded in the front yard. Parts of the beech tree lay scattered everywhere.
    An owl hooted from a faraway pine tree startling Tom. And then he heard a strange sound. A metallic clatter. Like something falling over in the direction of the barn. Silence followed.
    Swearing under his breath, he gritted his teeth and moved tenderly down the creaking wooden stairs.
    The cold cement slabs of the walkway sent shivers shooting up his legs as he hurried barefoot along the path, heading in the general direction of the barn. A split second before he hit the clearing between the house and the barn, turbulent snatches of memory crashed into him, almost making him topple over.
    Visions of a large, tilled plot of land surrounded by a pretty white picket fence. A brightly painted red hand pump stood proudly in the middle of the garden. He looked to his left and there it was. The tilled garden. The white picket fence. The red pump.
    What the hell was going on? How did he know about all this and about the motorcycle he knew he’d find inside the barn? He hadn’t felt these weird deja vu