Free Surrender the Dark by Donna Kauffman

trying.
    There was no mistaking the glitter in his eyes now. It was anger, not any new awareness of her that tempered the silvery depths with steel. She said a silent prayer that he was still too weak to move swiftly, because she didn’tdoubt he’d tie her to the chair to keep her from leaving if he thought it necessary. And it would be necessary. At the very least.
    “Two men,” he said quietly, so quietly he captured her complete attention. “One white-haired, age fifty-five, about five-ten, a good one seventy-five. The other midthirties, dark-complected, black hair, short beard, mustache, eyes blacker than hell and a soul to match. Both with too many aliases to make any of them worth repeating.”
    So, he wasn’t going to fight her. Good. She took the information in stride, relieved that he’d stopped with only that. They both knew that physical power was the least of his weapons. The power to give knowledge, or withhold it, was also in his hands. Some things never changed.
    Rae’s only response was a nod of understanding. She walked to the door, then turned back to him. McCullough was sipping his coffee, his gaze fixed on the scenery beyond the deep bay window.
    “You can’t possibly know how much I hate having to watch my back on my own mountain.”
    McCullough never shifted his attention from the window. “I’ve never gone through what you did, but I can appreciate your need for sanctuary, Rae. I’m not using you by choice. And I won’t risk you unnecessarily.”
    When there was no response, Jarrett looked over his shoulder. The doorway was empty.
    He turned back to the stark vista that filled the unadorned panes of glass. The sun outlined the very edge of the crest, the slope facing him still cast in shadows. Itwas all grays and browns, covered with barren-branched trees and piles of tumbled rock. The sky was colorless the ground strewn with broken leaves and dead tree limbs. Everywhere was death. Death of a season. Death of a sanctuary.
    The sun chose that moment to break free of the high ridge, shooting daggers of golden light up into the sky and down the side of the mountain. They speared the trees, highlighting the tiny buds of spring, the broken rocks where lush ferns were nested, and the spikes of wildflowers breaking through the protective winter blanket of leaves and twigs.
    Suddenly, instead of death, all he could see was life.
    The sensation that filled him was one of protection of being cradled in something far stronger than anything he’d ever known, something that no army or weapon could ever destroy.
    A warm knot uncurled in his belly and something that felt dangerously like languor crept into his veins. He doused it with the last dregs of his cold coffee, then barely restrained the urge to hurl the mug through the window, as if it could shatter the altered reality he’d just discovered beyond it.
    Rae negotiated the last tight storm-rutted turn toward her cabin. To say she wasn’t looking forward to the talk she knew she had to have with Jarrett was an understatement. Both men Jarrett had described had been spotted in town, asking questions.
    She put the four-wheel-drive Jeep into park and seethe brake, then let her hands rest on the steering wheel. She stared up at the front of the house she’d called home for close to two years. It beckoned to her now as it had the day she’d first driven up.
    She’d decided the same day she’d stormed out of McCullough’s office that she wanted out of the city, even of the suburbs. She’d stayed at her Arlington apartment for four months, endured therapy—both physical and mental—until the afternoon she’d spotted the ad for this place in the weekend real-estate section of the
Washington Post.
Two weeks later it was hers. And she’d never gone back.
    She looked up at the cedar-beam structure. The wood was old and weather-stained, but the construction was solid and enduring. It soared into a modified A-frame, with almost as much glass as wood