“How can I thank you, Glory Dixon?”

“By not giving me away. By helping me stay alive until I can figure out why…and who…and…”

“It’s done. Tell me what to do first.”

Again, she swayed on her feet. Wyatt reached out, but she pushed him away. Her gaze searched the boundary of trees around the rubble, constantly on the lookout for a hidden menace. Fear that she would be found before it was time was a constant companion.

“You need to hide your car. Maybe drive it around behind the barn, out in the pasture.”

“Where are you…uh…?”

“Hiding?”

He nodded.

“When you’ve parked your car, I’ll show you, but we need to hurry. There’ll be no moon tonight, and the woods are dense and dark.”

Wyatt headed for his car, and as he followed her directions through the narrow lanes, wondered what on earth he’d let himself in for. Yet as the beam of his headlights caught and then held on the beauty of her face and the pain he saw hidden in her eyes, he knew he didn’t give a damn. She’d helped him. The least he could do was repay the debt.

A few minutes later, they walked away from the site, following what was left of a road overgrown with bushes and weeds. The air was already damp. Dew was heavy on the grass, blotching the legs of their jeans and seeping into the soles of their shoes. The bag Wyatt was carrying kept getting caught on low-hanging limbs, but Glory seemed to pass through the brush without leaving a trace. It would seem that her fragile, delicate appearance was deceiving. He suspected that she moved through life as she did through these trees—with purpose.

The pup ran between their legs, barking once from the delight of just being alive. He ran with his nose to the ground and his long, puppy ears flopping, yet a single word from Glory and he hushed.

Something silent and dark came out of a tree overhead and sailed across their line of vision. Instinctively, Glory threw up her hands and gasped. Wyatt caught her as she started to run.

“I think it was an owl,” he said gently, and held her until she had calmed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not usually so jumpy. It’s just that…” Tears were thick in her voice as she pushed herself out of his arms and resumed their trek.

Visibility was nearly zero, yet Glory moved with a sure sense of direction and Wyatt followed without question. Night creatures hid as the pair walked past, then scurried back into their holes, suddenly unsure of their world. Wyatt heard the rustling in the deep, thick grass, and even though he knew what it was that he heard, he couldn’t prevent a shiver of anxiety. This was a far cry from the safety and comfort of the Tennessee home where he’d been recuperating. It reminded him too much of secret maneuvers he’d been on in places he’d rather forget.

He clutched at the bag over his shoulder and caught himself wishing it was a gun in his hands, and not a duffel bag. Twice as they walked, Glory paused, listening carefully to the sounds of the woods through which they walked, judging what she heard against what she knew should be there. After a time, she would resume the trek without looking back, trusting that because Wyatt had come, he would still follow.

Just when he was wondering if they would walk all night, they entered a clearing. Again Glory paused, this time clutching the sleeve of his shirt as she stared through the darkness, searching for something that would feel out of place.

The instinct that had carried Wyatt safely through several tours of duty told him that all was well.

“It’s okay,” he said, and this time he took her by the hand and led the way toward the cabin on the other side of the yard.

The night could not disguise the humble quality of the tiny abode. It was no more than four walls and a slanted, shingle roof, a rock chimney that angled up from the corner of the roof, with two narrow windows at the front of the cabin that stared back at them like a pair of dark, accusing eyes.

Glory shivered apprehensively, then slipped the key from her jeans. As her fingers closed around it, she was thankful that her daddy had kept this one hidden at the cabin, or she would have been unable to get inside the night before.

Wyatt listened to the woods around them as she worked the lock, and when the door swung open with a slight, warning squeak, she took his hand and led him through with an odd little welcome.

“We’re home,” she said.

As he followed her inside, he had the oddest sensation that what she said was true.

“Don’t turn on the light.”

Wyatt’s fingers paused on the edge of the switch. The panic in her voice was too real to ignore.

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

Glory nodded, then realized that in the dark, Wyatt Hatfield couldn’t see her face.

“Yes, I’m serious. Please wait here. I have a candle.”

Wyatt did as he was told. He set down his duffel bag and then closed the door behind him, thinking that the dark in here was as thick as the woods through which they’d just walked. Moments later, he heard the rasp of a match to wood, focused on the swift flare of light and watched a wick catch and burn. And then she turned, bathed in the gentle glow of candlelight. Once again, Wyatt was struck by her fragile beauty.

“Will the pup be all right outside?”

“Yes,” Glory said. “Follow me.” Wyatt picked up his bag. “This is where you’ll sleep,” she said, and held the candle above her head, giving him a dim view of the tiny room and the single bed. “I’m just across the hall in Granny’s bed.”

“Granny?”

“My father’s mother. This was her cabin. She’s all the family I have left.” And then her face crumpled as tears shimmered in her eyes. “The only problem is, she’s ninety-one years old and in a nursing home. Half the time she doesn’t remember her name, let alone me.”

As she turned away, Wyatt set his bag inside the room and followed her across the hall, watching as she set the candle on a bedside table, then ran across the room to check the curtains, making sure that no light would be visible from outside.

“Glory?”

She stilled, then slowly turned. “What?”

“Talk to me.”

She understood his confusion, but wasn’t sure she could make him understand. With a defeated sigh, she dropped to the corner of the bed, running her fingers lightly across the stitching on the handmade quilt, drawing strength from the woman who’d sewn it, and then bent over to pull off her boots. She tugged once, then twice, and without warning, started to cry quiet tears of heartbreak.

Wyatt flinched as her misery filled the tiny space. Without thinking, he knelt at her feet. Grasping her foot, he pulled one boot off and then the other before turning back the bed upon which she sat.

“Lie down.”

The gentleness in his voice was her undoing. Glory rolled over, then into a ball, and when the weight of the covers fell upon her shoulders, she began to sob.

“He was laughing,” she whispered.

Wyatt frowned. “Who was laughing, honey?”

“My brother, J.C. One minute he was digging through the grocery sack for Twinkies and laughing at something the pup had done, and then everything exploded.” She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to talk past the sobs. “I should have been with them.”

Wyatt cursed beneath his breath. Her pain was more than he could bear. He wanted to hold her, yet the unfamiliarity of their odd connection held him back. Slowly, she rolled over, looking at him through those silver-blue eyes while the skin crawled on the back of his neck.

“I was the first female born to the Dixon family in more than five generations. They say that my eyes were open when I was born, and that when Granny laid me on my mother’s stomach, I lifted my head, looked at my mother’s face and smiled. An hour later, my mother suddenly hemorrhaged, then died, and although I was in another room, Granny says that the moment she took her last breath, I started to cry. Granny called it ‘the sight.’ I consider it more of a curse.”