It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,17

far too active. Lizards ate crickets. Rattlesnakes ate lizards. Roadrunners ate rattlesnakes. Coyotes ate roadrunners. And rabbits and dogs and cats, too.

They also had a distinct howl. That happened mostly at night. A desert mating call he’d been told. Was that what he was hearing?

“Help!”

One word. Completely legible. Mark flew out the front door.

* * *

THE SCREAMING WOULDN’T STOP. Her throat was on fire. Burning. Hurting so badly she couldn’t suck in air. And still she screamed. But sound wasn’t coming out loudly enough.

Others were screaming, too. As long as they all kept screaming they would be okay. They’d be together. They just all had to keep screaming. She was crying, too. Tears clogged her throat. Choked her. But she couldn’t stop screaming. She had to let them know she was still there.

So they could find her.

She wasn’t sure where she was. She just had to let them know.

One of the other screams stopped. Or maybe she just couldn’t hear it because she was making too much noise. But she wasn’t making enough. They had to know she was here. Still screaming.

But she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t keep breathing. And screaming. She had to.

Another scream stopped.

Was she the only one?

But there was hollering. Really loud. Male hollering. Was that good? Or bad? Should she be quiet now?

Let her throat just hurt until she couldn’t feel it anymore? That’s all “here” had become. Her burning throat. And hollering.

And...

Addy bolted upright. The T-shirt and running shorts she’d put on when she got out of the shower clung to her. Sweat dripped down her neck and the sides of her face.

Head pounding, she jumped to her feet.

Someone was hollering. It wouldn’t stop. Spinning around, she whimpered. A frightened sound. Weak. One she recognized. And didn’t.

The pounding didn’t stop. The urgency in the male voice echoing her dream. She moved toward the sound.

Stood on cold tile. Her house had wood floors. Hotels had carpet. And...

“Adele! Adele, open the door! Let me know you’re okay. I’m calling the police.”

Adele. Realization slammed home with brutal force and she fell against the front door of her rented duplex.

“Don’t! Don’t call the police. I’m okay,” she said, praying that she sounded normal. And she absolutely did not want Greg Richards called to her home. Everyone in town would know. The sheriff’s calls went out on radio. And enough people in Shelter Valley listened in—to offer aid in case of emergency—to ensure that those that didn’t would know by morning if a woman new to town had an emergency.

She had to stay under the radar if she was going to make this work.

“Open the door. Let me see that you’re all right.”

She peered through the peephole. Mark stood there, cell phone to his ear.

And the inanity of her first thought—that he didn’t have a smartphone—brought her more completely back to reality.

She pulled open the door.

“What happened?”

She had to get rid of him.

“Nothing.”

“You look like hell.” He stood firmly in the doorway, staring at her, and then past her.

“I wasn’t expecting company. I just got out of the shower.”

“I don’t mean your... Your looks are fine,” he said, glancing her up and down quickly and then focusing on her eyes as though he was avoiding the rest of her. “You’re flushed. Your bangs are sticking to your forehead. And...you’re shaking.”

Men weren’t usually so observant. Leave it up to her to move next door to one who was. “Are you here alone?”

He motioned for her to nod or shake her head in lieu of a spoken answer.

She nodded. And then added, “Yeah, I’m here alone.”

“Then you won’t mind if I come in and check, will you? Either that or I call someone else to do so.”

He wasn’t giving up. And while a small little something deep inside of her was comforted, Addy didn’t want anyone in her house. She didn’t want anyone near her at all.

She especially didn’t want the sheriff of Shelter Valley at her door.

“I’m fine,” she said aloud. To Mark. And to the rest of Shelter Valley, too. But she stood back and held open her door.

Better Mark than anyone else.

He made quick work of checking out her living quarters—helped, she suspected, by the fact that his unit was identical to hers.

She waited in the living room. Stood by the couch with her arms crossed against her chest and held on until she was alone again.

“There’s no TV on.”

“I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

“No radio, either.”

Did he have a problem sitting quietly with his own thoughts? Or think