Power of the Raven Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn’t have left one of his tools behind and risk having it somehow traced back to him,” Gene said, thinking out loud. “Taken at face value, what happened tonight makes no sense. A burglar would have waited until no one was home, or Ms. Baker was asleep. At the very least, it would have made a lot more sense to wait until after I’d left.”
    “Maybe he didn’t know you were still here, but either way, none of that lessens the threat. Give some serious consideration to what I suggested,” he said, looking back at Lori.
    As Sergeant Chavez walked away, Lori’s heart was hammering and her mouth was dry. Fear pounded through her with each beat of her heart. She had absolutely no idea what to do now.
    “Would you like me to stick around for a few more hours?”
    “Do you think he’ll come back tonight to try and finish what he started?” Her voice rose and her throat tightened.
    “Normally, I’d say no, but this guy doesn’t act in a way that makes sense to me. That makes him unpredictable.”
    “I won’t be getting much sleep tonight,” she said softly.
    “So you’re not going to take the officer’s advice and move out for a while?”
    “Move where? How can I possibly justify staying at a friend’s, knowing I could be leading danger right to their doorstep? I could go to a motel, but I’ll be endangering others there, as well.” She took a shaky breath. “But it’s more than that. Allowing fear to dictate what you do is never a good thing. You lose a piece of yourself when you do that. Can you understand?”
    He nodded. “I hear you.”
    As they stood by his truck, she glanced at his rifle, hung on a rack and locked in place in the cab. “How about letting me rent that from you for a few days?”
    “It’s got a powerful kick. Do you think you can handle it?” He unlocked the rack and took it down. “It’s a Winchester .30-30. It’s accurate up to a couple hundred yards. Have you ever handled one before?”
    “No, but how hard can it be? Point the barrel and pull the trigger. Just show me how to put bullets in it.”
    He shook his head. “No, forget that. If you’ve never used one, you won’t be able to handle it, especially if you’re frightened. You’re more likely to have it taken away and used against you. Maybe someday I can bring you to my ranch and show you how to shoot, but without any training you’re far more likely to hurt yourself or a neighbor. Bullets travel far and have a way of hitting unintended targets. That’s why rifles, by and large, are too dangerous in urban areas.”
    “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. “I need to think of something else.”
    As she looked at him she had to bite back a sigh. She would have loved hiring him as a guard. Gene was tall, his shoulders broad, his chest muscular. Having a man like him beside her would have practically guaranteed the safety of everything but her heart.
    Nothing about Gene was ordinary. His skin was the color of warm caramel, but it was his dark eyes that attracted her the most. Despite his strength, they mirrored only gentleness.
    Trying to focus on something safer, she pointed to the braided leather bridle that hung on a hook in the back of the pickup’s cab. “That’s beautiful.”
    “That belongs to Grit, my brother Paul’s horse. Our foster father left the animal to him. Grit’s a handful, and Paul’s as stubborn as they come, so those two have a minor war going on now. In all fairness, Grit doesn’t make life easy for anyone. I left the bridle too close to his stall, so he bit through it. I had to have a section replaced.”
    “It sounds like he’s going to take careful handling.”
    “Grit has problems,” he said, nodding. “So far, I’m the only one who can ride him. Grit’s an old rodeo horse that was about to be sold to a slaughterhouse when my foster father found him. Hosteen Silver never had a problem with Grit, but the horse wouldn’t accept any other rider, not without a