When Lightning Strikes Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked up at the top of the hill and saw something that chilled her blood. There was the ancient tree. It had been scorched from the lightning and split down the middle, but it was the same tree. But how could that be? If that was the tree then her father’s house should be just off to the left and the LaCroix’s house and land should be off to the right. And where was the road? There should be a road just a few hundred feet from here! Something was terribly wrong.
    Dominic walked up behind her at that moment and reached out for her arm.
    “No, leave me be,” she said and pulled away from him.
    She began to race to the top of the hill, and in her haste she almost lost the blanket covering her nakedness. She didn’t care. Dominic was hot on her heels, but still she ran. When she reached the top of the grassy crest, she stopped and looked down. What she saw there made her knees go weak.
    There was no house at the bottom of the hill. The LaCroix house was nowhere to be seen. There were no roads anywhere except a small dirt path cutting through the unkempt countryside. Off in the far distance, maybe two or three miles away there was an estate of some sort. It looked like some kind of medieval castle with a fortress surrounding it. How could this be? This was the tree; there was no mistake.
    “Oh, god what is happening to me?” she thought. Maybe this was all some kind of nightmare or a hallucination and she would wake up soon. Somehow, she knew that wasn’t the case. She also knew she was not a raving lunatic. But where was her home?  This landscape was rough and unfamiliar. She began to breathe heavily and tears stung her eyes.
    She looked down at the ground and spotted the ancient coin she had held in her hand the night before. She picked it up and looked at it . What if? This was nuts..it just couldn’t be .
    She tried to suppress the thought in her mind, but she couldn’t. It was crazy, damn it! But there could be no other explanation. She remembered her mother’s strange words about passion and love across lifetimes and felt ice flowing through her veins. What if the coin had somehow transported her to some other century?
    Dominic had watched as the woman looked around on the verge of hysteria. He had raced up the hill after her expecting her to try to escape, but she had come to an abrupt stop when she reached the tree and he had run into her almost toppling both of them down the steep grade. She began to breathe heavily and started crying after she picked up a galbi lying beneath the tree.
    He reached out to offer her his hand, but she just stood there looking at him with tears spilling over her thick lashes. He tried to pull her to him to comfort her but she pushed him away.
    “Mon fleur, if you will just tell me your name and where you came from, I can send out one of my men to inform your family that you are alive, quite well and will be returned to them unharmed…for a fair price, of course . ”
    Now a new wave of hysteria washed over her as the enormity of this situation came crashing down. What would he and his group of sleazebags do to her when they found out that she had no family to rescue her? Even worse what would they do if they found out the truth about where she had come from? They would most certainly brand her a witch. From the looks of things, she was probably somewhere in the medieval period where burning witches was considered quality entertainment. She felt as if the world was coming to an end. And, in fact, it had for her. Everything she had known and loved did not exist; at least not yet.
    Dominic decided to take matters into his own hands, literally. He tried to sweep the crying woman up into his arms and carry her back down the hill to the safety of his wagon, but as he reached beneath her to lift her up she fought him like some kind of demon. After a moment or two, he decided he had had enough of her lunacy, and he roughly swept her over his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes.