Come Hell or High Desire Read Online Free PDF Page A

tsunami roared in her ears. She experienced the blow of residual emotion first.
     Frustration, anger, and anxiety slammed into her system, forming a tight knot in her
     belly. Then images rolled through her mind, one after the other so fast she felt nauseous.
    A well-muscled man in a suit. Sandy blond hair. Attractive. He speaks to Zack: You can handle this. He has such a nice inflection.
    Zack strides past the man and enters a well-appointed conference room with floor to
     ceiling windows. Two men in sport coats rise and extend soft hands. Zack’s disgust
     tastes like acid in her mouth. Their conversation swirls through her head, making
     her so dizzy she can’t keep up with Zack’s cascade of emotion.
    Disappointment. Shame. Guilt.
    She hears his thoughts. Who left the note? Why? Where, Ann? Where can you be?
    Her soul wants to bleed at the agony in his tone.
    “Sloane.”
    The bright afternoon sunlight punched through the vision. She swayed, heard a moan,
     and then her stomach heaved, emptying until there was nothing left. Spent, she was
     on her hands and knees. Something firm braced her ribcage below her breasts. Holding
     her up. Zack.
    Oh, Lord. She’d just puked. In. Front. Of. Him.
    She tried to stand.
    “Easy.” Zack’s husky drawl stirred the hair by her ear, sending goose bumps on a painful
     relay across her arms. Her skin, already so sensitized by the vision, tingled at the
     touch of the hard male curved around her.
    “Fine! I’m fine. Can you…I need to sit down.” When he swung her up into his arms,
     her heart galloped, and her stomach quavered all over again. She wanted to cry. And
     Sloane Petra Swift didn’t do crying in front of an audience.
    “Just put me down! On the ground. Please. In the grass. I want to sit in the grass.
     Now!”
    Her voice cracked on the last word. Zack eased her down beside the rampant red blooms
     of a weigela bush. She wiped at her mouth and thrust her fingers into the grass until
     her nails found rich soil. She closed her eyes to imagine a pathway traveling from
     the center of her body through her fingertip connection to the earth. The sudden discharge
     of energy made her weak.
    She’d avoided this shit for six years. Envisioning the aftermath of a girl’s murder
     as she had would probably make anyone averse. And while the results of this vision
     weren’t nearly as horrific, what good had come of it?
    Zero, zilch, zippo. Only a raging headache. And don’t forget about the heaping dose
     of mortification. You knew it was a pointless “gift.” Now knock it off .
    A large shadow fell across her lap. She didn’t have to look up to wonder what he was
     probably thinking. Weirdo came to mind. How about freak? That had been a crowd favorite
     during adolescence.
    Agnes hurried over to them, water sloshing over the sides of a glass. She thrust it
     at Sloane, then pressed her hands to her chest, her breathing so labored Sloane wondered
     who needed the water more.
    Zack extended a hand to help her up, his eyes questioning as his hand curled around
     hers. Once on her feet, she walked to her vehicle to wet-wipe her hands, swill some
     water, and swallow half a dozen breath mints. She returned to the site of her gutting
     and poured what remained of her water bottle onto the sloped pavement.
    Sucked to have someone you wanted to impress witness your humiliation. Sucked worse
     when that same someone pulled you through it.
    And wasn’t it petty to be pissed about that?
    She watched the pair talking on the grass between the two condos when suddenly Agnes
     pointed at the logo on his tinted truck window. Her words carried all the way over
     to Ann’s driveway. “Oh would you look at that! Samuel’s Construction. No wonder Ann’s
     name always niggled at the back of my brain. John was her father, wasn’t he?”
    Sloane plucked up her courage and headed their way. Agnes was on a roll now. “That
     Johnny Samuel was quite the catch in his day. Didn’t he