Heart of the Hunter by Bj James Page A

until the soft rustle of trampled grass returning to normal posture became the thundering tick of a monstrous clock keeping time at a tortoise’s pace.
    Every second was an eon, each minute immeasurable, as she listened and waited.
    And waited.
    â€œNicole! Nicole! Please, Nicole!”
    The scream she’d dreaded had her scrambling to her feet. Coming from everywhere, and nowhere, echoing in her mind, the terror of it clawed at her spine like a serrated blade. The voice that screamed for her was deep, but immature. A child whose voice had grown when he had not.
    â€œNo. No. No. Jeb, no.” She was running. Limbs grabbed at her hair and her clothes. Vines clawed at her, threatened to trip her. But she wouldn’t allow it. Couldn’t.
    She stopped to orient herself. She had no sense of direction, no beacon to guide her.
    A second scream filled the night, sliding down the scale to a plaintive whimper. A terrified child cried. One who wouldn’t know his own strength, and Jeb wouldn’t understand.
    Precious seconds had been lost. She would be too late.
    In anguish she whispered his name.
    The name of a child.
    â€œAshley.”

Five
    T he plaintive mewling of a frightened child finally stopped. But the hurt reflected in faded, watery eyes still haunted Jeb. No matter where he turned, their bewildered innocence followed him. Even in the dark, with the moon a glimmering golden globe, and night winds bearing the beguiling balm of the sea, they lay in wait to accuse.
    Lifting his hands before his face, he stared at them. In the broken light falling from Nicole’s bedroom door they were normal hands, of a normal man. Nothing about them appeared dangerous, certainly not lethal. But appearances deceived. As he deceived, and little more than an hour before, with only these damnable hands he had nearly throttled a child.
    God help him, in any interpretation, a child.
    The pad of Nicole’s bare feet whispered over the deck. Another incongruity to be added to her dirtied and disheveled dinner finery. Her subtle fragrance drifted about him as she came to stand by his side.
    The one constant in a bizarre evening.
    Jeb’s hands dropped to the deck rail, gripping. “How is he?”
    â€œAsleep, finally.”
    â€œNo.” Jeb’s head jerked. “I mean how is he, really?”
    â€œBruised. His throat will be sore for a while. And his ribs.” Nicole touched his arm, feeling the tension in muscles and nerve. “He’ll heal.”
    â€œPhysically.”
    â€œAnd emotionally.” Her fingers stroked his taut forearm. “Ashley won’t remember. He never does.”
    â€œI don’t think this is quite the same.” Jeb knew the story of Ashley Blackmon. During the drive to the island, as she cradled the shuddering, hulking body with her own, Nicole told of a shy and gentle giant with the mind of a child. A wanderer of the streets of Charleston, considered a mild nuisance by some, a perfect target for malicious pranks by others.
    â€œThere was no way you could know, Jeb.”
    No, there was no way he could have known. But that little salve for his conscience didn’t silence the frantic squall of terror that echoed in his mind. As long as he lived, he would feel that powerful body beneath his hands, and hear the frenzied cry for the only person Ashley Blackmon trusted.
    Nicole.
    â€œIf anyone is to blame, then I am,” she insisted gently.
    â€œHow do you figure that? You didn’t burst through shrubs like Rambo, or garrote anyone.” Jeb flexed his fingers, and found hers lacing through them, risking their steely grip.
    â€œYou aren’t Rambo,” she lifted their joined hands to the light. “And this is not a garrote. You did what any strong man would do. That it came down to that drastic measure is my fault and mine alone. I should have realized it might be Ashley.” But her mind had been too full of Jeb to think of anyone,