Realization hit her like a slap in the face, and tilted her world on its side. Oh, my God, that was gunfire!

From the twins’ bedroom came the sound of breaking glass.

She bolted out of bed. feeling blindly for the flashlight she always kept on her bedside table in case one of the boys needed her in the middle of the night. Her hand brushed it and knocked it sideways; it hit the floor with a clatter and thump, rolling.

“Shit!” She had to have a flashlight; the interior of the house was as dark as Tut’s tomb; she’d fall on something and break a bone if she tried navigating it in total darkness. She went down on her hands and knees and crawled around the bedroom floor, slowly sweeping her hands out in front of her. After a couple of panicky sweeps in which she touched nothing more interesting than her bedroom slippers, her fingers found cool metal. She thumbed the switch, and a bright beam shot out, the light restoring her surroundings to familiarity and banishing that disturbing sense of disorientation.

She ran out into the hall, instinct turning her to the left, toward the twins’ room. The sound of more breaking glass made her skid to a stop. The boys weren’t there, they were safely in Seattle with her parents, and… and… was someone shooting at her house?

Her blood ran so cold she thought she might faint, and she swayed against the wall, putting her hand out for support. Without knowing the particulars of what was going on, her mind made a huge, instinctive jump and shouted “Mellor!” at her.

Mellor and Huxley. They had come back.

She had been terrified they would; that was the reason she’d sent the boys away. She didn’t know why the two men were back or what they wanted, but beyond any doubt, she knew they were the ones doing this. Were they downstairs, even now. waiting for her? Was she trapped up here?

No. They had to be outside, if they were shooting into the house. This was her house, her home, and she knew every nook, every weird angle, every way out. They1 couldn’t trap her in here. She could get out, somehow.

She realized that the flashlight pinpointed her position, and switched it off. The night seemed even darker than before, her vision ruined by the brief time she’d had the flashlight on. She had to risk it, she thought, and switched the light on again.

First things first. She had to put some clothes on and get to the ground floor.

She raced back to her room, grabbed jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, listening hard for a betraying noise that would tell her they were in her house. The gunfire continued and it actually sounded somewhat distant. From outside came shouts and screams, cries of fear or pain. She couldn’t hear anything inside.

When she reached the head of the stairs, she shone the flashlight down them. She couldn’t see anything unusual, so she went down the first few steps, flashing the light around the hallway and foyer. Empty, as much as she could see. She took the rest of the stairs faster, feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable, almost leaping down the last three steps.

Weapon. She needed some sort of weapon.

Damn it, she had two four-year-olds in the house; she didn’t keep weapons around.

Except for her knives. She was a cook. She had a lot of knives. She also had that cliche woman’s weapon, a rolling pin. Fine. Anything would do.

Keeping the flashlight aimed at the floor so the beam would he more difficult to see, she eased into the kitchen and went straight to her block of knives, pulling out the biggest one, the chef’s knife. The handle fit into her hand like an old friend.

Silently she moved back into the hallway, which was centrally located in the house, i his was where she would be least trapped, where she could go in any direction.

She turned off the flashlight and stood there in the dark, listening, waiting. How long she stood there didn’t matter. She could hear her own harsh breathing, feel it rasping in her throat. Her head swam. She could feel her heart racing in panic, feel the almost painful thud of her heartbeat against her ribs. No, she couldn’t panic—she wouldn’t panic. Drawing in a deep breath, as deep as she could manage, she held it and used her inflated lungs to compress her heart and hold it, force it to slow. It was an old trick she’d used while climbing, whenever she’d caught her body’s automatic responses overpowering her discipline and focus.

Slow… slow… already she could think better… slower, slower… she gently released that breath and took another, more controlled one. The dizziness faded. Whatever happened, she was readier to face it now than she had been a moment before.

Thudding on the front porch, fast and heavy, and the doorknob rattled violently.

“Cate! Are you all right?”

She took a step forward, then froze. A man. She didn’t recognize the voice. Mellor and Huxley both knew her first name, because she’d introduced herself to them.

“Cate!”

The entire front door shuddered as something was slammed hard against it, then slammed again. The door frame seemed to groan.

“Cate, it’s Cal! Answer me!”

Relief swept over her in a huge surge and a cry burst out of her. She started forward as the door gave up its resistance and banged back against the doorstop. A flashlight suddenly came on, sweeping across her face and blinding her. She threw up an arm to shield her eyes, skidding to a stop as she tried to see. She could make out only the vague outline of a man behind the glare of the light, and he was moving fast, too fast for her to get out of his way.

It was like hitting a wall. His body collided with Cate’s with enough force to knock the knife from her hand and send it clattering down the hall. The blinding beam from his flashlight waved wildly back and forth in a strobe effect before spinning to the side. She staggered back, grabbing wildly for something, anything, to break her fall and found herself clutching a hard, lean waist. She couldn’t have fallen anyway, because a steel band clamped around her back, steadying her against him.

A sharp sense of unreality made her head swim again as time collapsed and the world shrank to a tiny point of focus, poised on the edge of a cliff. None of this was real; it couldn’t be. She was just Cate, an ordinary woman living an ordinary life; people didn’t shoot at her.

“It’s okay,” Cal murmured against her hair. “I’ve got. you.” She heard the words, but they didn’t make sense because he was part of the whole unreality. This man was not the man she’d known for three years. Mr. Harris wouldn’t hold her this way, wouldn’t have broken in her door and come charging across the floor like some avenging warrior badass dude, holding a shotgun in one hand—

Except he had.

The body she was clinging to so tightly was hard and muscled almost steaming with heat. He was breathing fast, as if he’d been running, and his head was bent down to press against hers. And the way he was holding her was—She hadn’t been held this way in so long that she was stunned, disbelieving. Mr. Harris? Cal?

Her body whispered, yes. That was even more disconcerting, tipping her further and further off balance. What kind of pervert was she, to have some sort of weird sexual response to the handyman when the entire community was evidently tinder some sort of attack? It still sounded like a war out there, but she felt as if the two of them were contained in a small private cone of existence where reality didn’t intrude. For a moment his arm tightened, arching her even closer, so that she felt the bulge of his genitals pushing, seeking… then he released her and eased away, bending to pick up the flashlight.

Cate stood unmoving, desperately trying to put herself back in time to the way things had been just half an hour before, before explosions and shooting and the upheaval of all she knew or had thought she knew.