Lucidity Read Free

not referring to your… I didn’t mean… Oh, for God’s sake. I was trying to remind you it’s cold outside, woman.”
    Carly froze in the middle of the living room, her mind gone blank. Gawd, if only she could focus half as well in the real world as the other. Winter. Right. She needed a coat. Damn. Where had she put her parka? She’d been in such a hurry to respond to her sleep alert when they first arrived…
    A second later, the coat sailed through the air and into her arms. Parker wasn’t the easiest man to be stuck with, but he was the best.
    “If you’d wear clothes sometimes instead of lingerie, we’d cut our escape time in half, young lady.”
    “But gee, Dad.” She snickered. “All the vestal virgins are wearing these this year.”
    He flushed, obviously embarrassed she’d overheard him. “Then I’d say they need a sound spanking too.”
    “We’ve had this discussion, Parker,” she retorted, slipping her arms into the sleeves. “It’s important for me to feel comfortable and secure to do what I do.”
    “Forgive me. So, Victoria’s real Secret is how to look sexy when you get shot?” His neck snapped back as he eased the rear door open. “Shep?”
    “All clear so far. Spare?”
    Carly watched Parker toss a semiautomatic .45 to his handsome companion as casually as if it were a Frisbee. Four months ago, she wouldn’t have known one weapon from another. A few decades ago, she might’ve been a hippy, all peace and free love. Hell, she couldn’t swat a fly without apologizing first. She abhorred the idea of violence and wouldn’t have been caught dead around a gun.
    Now she not only recognized them but had been forced to learn how to use one in a pinch. Parker Munroe had also seen to that.
    Shepherd settled into a crouch before the front window, all glittering charm diverted to deadly intent. “Hey, why dontcha leave me that nice pearl-handled number you keep in your crotch?”
    Parker scanned the trees behind the cabin, barely sparing his friend a last look. “Always suspected you had the hots for my rod, Shep.” Poised with his weapon sweeping the premises, he crept cautiously through the rear as Carly huddled against his broad back, matching him step for step.
    She turned when he swiveled, listened when he stopped. She wondered if the enemy was upon them and tried to pierce the twilight with dry, weary eyes. Would Shepherd be all right? What kind of insanity made it acceptable for these two men to lose their lives for her? The people of the Temple weren’t monsters, any more than the One Hundred were mutants. They were average folks with staunch beliefs. And they were sure their cause was justified, as much as she was. In a world about to go rabid-dog mad, that was the most frightening thing of all.
    The angry clap of a single shot sounded behind them. Shep, sending a warning burst over their visitors’ heads, she thought.
    And then there was no time for thought. They ran for Parker’s Jeep, conveniently tucked beneath the towering evergreens in the nearby woods. As he tossed the bags into the back, she thought she heard angry voices shouting in their wake and said a silent prayer for Shepherd Bolt. The frigid air scorched her lungs as her heart pumped fear through her veins. She managed a quick peek at the indecisive sky as it fell victim to night—and then there was no time for that either.
    Carly scrambled for the door he held open for her, thumping her skull in the process and nearly falling back.
    “C’mon, c’mon.” Parker cupped her butt with one huge hand and propelled her forward, snapping impatiently. “Get that tight little tush on board!”
    Gasping at the unintentionally intimate contact and seeing stars, she folded into the car and assumed her familiar position—cowering low in the passenger’s seat, her cheek hard against her knee.
    The vehicle took flight, skimming over mounds of snow and lurching in ruts of mud until it leveled off, the tires singing along