Slow... slow... already she could think better... slower, slower... she gently released that breath and took another, more controlled one. The dizziness faded. Whatever happened, she was readier to face it now than she had been a moment before.
Thudding on the front porch, fast and heavy, and the doorknob rattled violently.
"Cate! Are you all right?"
She took a step forward, then froze. A man. She didn't recognize the voice. Mellor and Huxley both knew her first name, because she'd introduced herself to them.
"Cate!"
The entire front door shuddered as something was slammed hard against it, then slammed again. The door frame seemed to groan.
"Cate, it's Cal! Answer me!"
Relief swept over her in a huge surge and a cry burst out of her. She started forward as the door gave up its resistance and banged back against the doorstop. A flashlight suddenly came on, sweeping across her face and blinding her. She threw up an arm to shield her eyes, skidding to a stop as she tried to see. She could make out only the vague outline of a man behind the glare of the light, and he was moving fast, too fast for her to get out of his way.
Chapter 17
It was like hitting a wall. His body collided with Cate's with enough force to knock the knife from her hand and send it clattering down the hall. The blinding beam from his flashlight waved wildly back and forth in a strobe effect before spinning to the side. She staggered back, grabbing wildly for something, anything, to break her fall and found herself clutching a hard, lean waist. She couldn't have fallen anyway, because a steel band clamped around her back, steadying her against him.
A sharp sense of unreality made her head swim again as time collapsed and the world shrank to a tiny point of focus, poised on the edge of a cliff. None of this was real; it couldn't be. She was just Cate, an ordinary woman living an ordinary life; people didn't shoot at her.
"It's okay," Cal murmured against her hair. "I've got. you." She heard the words, but they didn't make sense because he was part of the whole unreality. This man was not the man she'd known for three years. Mr. Harris wouldn't hold her this way, wouldn't have broken in her door and come charging across the floor like some avenging warrior badass dude, holding a shotgun in one hand -
Except he had.
The body she was clinging to so tightly was hard and muscled almost steaming with heat. He was breathing fast, as if he'd been running, and his head was bent down to press against hers. And the way he was holding her was - She hadn't been held this way in so long that she was stunned, disbelieving. Mr. Harris? Cal?
Her body whispered, yes. That was even more disconcerting, tipping her further and further off balance. What kind of pervert was she, to have some sort of weird sexual response to the handyman when the entire community was evidently tinder some sort of attack? It still sounded like a war out there, but she felt as if the two of them were contained in a small private cone of existence where reality didn't intrude. For a moment his arm tightened, arching her even closer, so that she felt the bulge of his genitals pushing, seeking... then he released her and eased away, bending to pick up the flashlight.
Cate stood unmoving, desperately trying to put herself back in time to the way things had been just half an hour before, before explosions and shooting and the upheaval of all she knew or had thought she knew.
Hooking the strap of the shotgun over his shoulder, Cal also picked up the chef's knife she'd dropped, studying the wide blade with a sort of grim approval. He held the flashlight pointed at the floor, the powerful beam reflecting enough for her to see him, and her senses reeled again.
She had never seen him wearing anything other than baggy coveralls, stained with grease, paint, dirt, or whatever else he'd been working with that particular day. She'd had him firmly fixed in her mind as a skinny shy handyman, backward but useful. That view had taken a hit when she'd seen the expression in his eyes as he looked down his shotgun barrel at Mellor, and now it was shattered forever.
He was wearing his usual work boots, but nothing else was the same. The khaki cargo pants were belted at his waist, and despite the chilly weather, he was wearing only a dark T-shirt that clung to wide shoulders and a lean, rock-hard body. Even with just the light from the flashlight she saw the gleam of sweat on his bare arms, arms that were sinewy and powerful. His shaggy hair was still shaggy, but there was no hint of shyness in his grim, set expression.
Cate could barely breathe. She was standing on the edge of some internal cliff and she was afraid to move, afraid she would... would what? She didn't know, but the sense of instability frightened her almost as much as all those guns shooting outside.
Someone appeared in the broken doorway, and to Cate's amazement he. too. was carrying either a shotgun or a rifle. "Is Cate all right?" he asked, and Cate recognized Walter Earl's voice.
"I'm fine, Walter," she said, moving toward the door. "Is Milly okay? Is anyone hurt?"
"Milly's sitting on your back lawn. Staying low seemed smart to me, so that's where she is. People are pulling back. Someone said that's what you said to do, so that's what they're doing. Are we out of range here?"
"No," Cal said. "Not of the rifles, anyway."
"The window in the boys' bedroom was shot out," Cate said softly, and the horror of it hit her all over again. What if they'd been here? They'd have been terrified, possibly hurt... possibly dead. Her heart squeezed in anguish at just the thought.
"Then what are we doing here?" Walter asked.
"Putting as many walls as possible between us and them, thus I'm pretty sure they have either night-vision or infrared spotters. Infrared is limited to about four hundred yards, so we need to get beyond that. Won't stop the bullets, but at least they'll be shooting blind - and they may not want to waste the ammunition."