her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. “Thank you for the fire. I don’t even know when I’m cold anymore.”
“It’s getting cold up here. It will start snowing soon,” Sam said.
She was grateful that he stayed in the chair across from her, where she could see his reassuring presence, but didn’t touch her. He always seemed to know what she needed. When she first woke up after one of her nightmares, even though she was handling them better, she was close to panicking— too close. She needed to allow herself the time to breathe. To admit she was afraid. That she detested she was able to connect with a serial killer, even if it meant catching him and preventing him from killing more people.
Sam let her be who she was. He didn’t “fix” her. He didn’t ask her if she was all right. He knew she wasn’t. He just simply let her work through the nightmare the way she had to, and he was there for her, staying silent until she needed to bounce her ideas off him. If she wanted to talk about it, he’d talk about it. If she wanted to divert attention to something else, he would go along with it. That was Sam, exactly what she needed. She was coming to see, more and more, just why they fit together.
She missed Bailey pushing his head into her lap. She missed being able to scratch his ears, giving her something else to concentrate on while she processed. He made her feel safe. He had always given her companionship when she’d lived alone for those years.
“When I first took on the resort as manager, it was really rundown. I lived in the big cabin, which was a wreck, by the way. I got Bailey from a rescue place. He’s a mix, mostly Airedale, but the breeders were upset because another male had gotten in that wasn’t all Airedale, so they gave the pups to the rescue place. He was the sweetest little puppy. I didn’t go anywhere without him. This little bundle of curly fur.”
She rubbed her thigh where Bailey usually positioned his head when he was trying to comfort her. “I called Amelia a dozen times today and she assured me he was doing so much better. She didn’t want me to visit him because she said I’d get him too excited and she’d never get him to calm down again. I just wanted to bring him home. He has to be there several days and needs to be very quiet.”
She knew Sam was well aware she’d argued with Amelia over visiting with Bailey, but in the end complied with the vet’s wishes. She was babbling and Sam just let her, the way he always did. She sighed and forced herself to get to the main topic.
“I didn’t get much at all. I’ll sketch what I did, but I had no idea what I was looking at. You might know. As for the part of the forest, there was no identifying path or trail that I could see. I could hear all kinds of birds. Shabina knows so much about birds, particularly in our area. If she has recordings of birds, if I listened to them, I might be able to tell her which ones they sounded like. She could maybe identify them and also the area for us.”
“That’s a good idea.”
She scrubbed her palm over her face as if she could erase the sinister feeling that always came when she had the nightmare. A little shiver went down her spine. She found herself looking around, wanting to get her gun out of the safe where she kept it and just have it on the bed beside her. She took another cautious look out the bank of windows.
“Do you think he’s out there again, Sam?”
“Yes. He’s keeping his distance. While you were sleeping, I took a walk around the property, inside the gates and all around the cabins.”
“Sam,” she protested. “After what he did to Sonny and Bailey, you can’t take chances like that. I don’t care what you did in the military. This person is really scary. There’s something wrong with him. People like that are …” She stopped herself from saying invincible.
Sam’s dark gaze was fixed on her face. “Sweetheart.”
The way he said that single endearment turned her heart over, but it didn’t change the truth. Whoever was out there was playing for keeps. He had a knife and he’d plunged the