Lance lay against her, fighting to breathe for long seconds before he finally collapsed to her side and drew her against his body. The violence of his release had sapped the last remaining strength of his body, and he knew sleep was only seconds away. Peaceful sleep.
He heard the soft call of the winds outside his home, the promise of protection as he surrendered to his need to rest. He didn't have to worry about protecting Harmony for now. The land would protect them both.
"Sleep now," he whispered at her ear. "You're safe."
"Good night, Lance," Harmony whispered, allowing him to tuck her closer to his chest as his chin rested against her head.
Here. This was life, he thought as his eyes closed and sleep overtook him. Right here. And the small breeze at his ear whispered its affirmation. This was life. ____________
Harmony dozed through the night, her senses always aware, her sensitive ears picking up each sound outside Lance's home, listening for any change to the sounds of the night.
When danger neared, the wildlife would pause. It was a part of nature. They would watch and listen to see if the danger was to them or to others. There was no pause, no change in the symphony outside the windows.
That symphony allowed her to find partial rest. To lie against his chest, sheltered in his arms as he slept deeply, helplessly. She protected him as he had protected her. Allowing him the rest he needed before a new day began.
The last three days had been exceptionally hard on them both perhaps. It couldn't be easy for Lance either. His life had to have been thrown into as much disarray as hers. As she dozed in his arms, at times she imagined she felt parts of his soul in the heat of his body that soaked into her own. Why he would allow such an intimate part of himself inside a being as dark as herself, she couldn't fathom.
She didn't mean to sleep, not really. She had learned the fine art of dozing long ago. But for the first time, Harmony found peace. Cradled within his warmth, her soul rested.
CHAPTER 9
Keeping distance between her heart and Lance wasn't going to be easy, Harmony admitted two days later as she drove through town in her assigned Raider. The spare Raider was normally kept in case one of the others was down for repairs, Lance had explained the day before, almost apologizing for the sad shape of the vehicle. It wasn't the best of the lot, she admitted, and it definitely wasn't fit for desert patrol, but once she learned its quirks, maneuvering it through town was easy.
Tourist season was in full swing in Broken Butte. The desert, canyons and cave formations outside town made it a regular attraction for summer travelers. The town itself had an Old West flavor, from the boutiques, cafes and specialty shops that lined the main thoroughfare, to the bars, restaurants and hotels that rimmed the edges of the city.
There was a clinic, hospital and medical pavilion on one side of town, then along the western edge was a small industrial park and the stockyards to accommodate the ranchers.
It was a charming town, she admitted as she made her way along the industrial area she'd been given to patrol.
There were a few homes on the outskirts of town here, a trailer park as well as a few apartment complexes, but she had heard from the other deputies that it was considered the quietest part of town.
It was boring as hell, but she contented herself with the fact that as long as she wasn't in town, then she wasn't likely to run into H. R. Alonzo. Or get into any more trouble. Good ole Reverend Alonzo was going to keep pushing buttons until some enterprising Breed decided they had heard enough of his propaganda and capped a bullet in his brain.
He was the scourge of the Breed community, rallying the Blood supremacist and purist societies to protest every advancement the Breeds made in society. At present, he was once again applying for a permit to protest Megan Arness's ranch and the Breed halfway house she had set up there.
Megan Arness was another problem, and Harmony did not want any part of the empath and her Breed husband. They had nearly caught up with her in France last year. Why they had given up the chase she had never been certain, but before they did, she had wondered if outrunning them was a hopeless cause.
Megan Arness could blow her secrets faster than anything or anyone alive if she got close enough. Harmony knew her shields were strong, but she also knew the rumors of that woman's power to detect emotions and secrets. And Harmony had too many secrets to hide.
And then there was the fact that sometimes tourists were just strange. She had stopped a mugging the day before— wrestling with the little SOB who had snatched a young mother's purse had been irritating as hell. He had been hyped on drugs and stronger than normal; she had been forced to slam his face into the pavement to disable and restrain him.
Unfortunately, she had broken his nose. She hadn't meant to. Hell, she wasn't used to wearing kid gloves. The little twit should have felt lucky he was alive rather than scream police abuse. Which was what had gotten her assigned to the town's outer limits.
"Harmony, your GPS is blinking again." Lance's voice came over the Raider's communications link, suggesting a thread of irritation. "Have you been messing with it?" She rolled her eyes. She had fixed it to begin with.
"I haven't touched it, Sheriff," she drawled as she reached to the dash and tapped at the GPS display. "It appears to be working fine on this end."
She checked her mirrors before pulling into an empty lot and adjusting the tracker module set in the dash.
"Don't start working on it." Lance's irritation was coming across loud and clear. "When you come back in, check with Davy in the garage; tell him I said to check it out."
"Davy worked on it the first time," she informed him as she undipped her seat belt before leaning to the side to look at the wires under the dash. "You should let me take it back to the house. I could get it together in a few hours on my own."
"A terrifying thought," he remarked. "Turn it in to the garage. And stop fooling with the wires."
She jerked her hand back from under the dash guiltily as she glared at the receiver.
"If the GPS is down, you can't track me," she snapped.