Beverly Barton - The Outcast

THE OUTCAST

Beverly Barton

Chapter 1

He was out there somewhere. Alone. Angry. Injured. And afraid he wouldn't live long enough to prove his innocence and make the guilty pay.

Elizabeth Mallory shuddered, as much from the premonition as from the chill of the February wind whipping across the front porch of her mountain cabin home. With a cup of strong black coffee in her right hand, she stood in the open doorway, gazing out over the freshly fallen snow. The first faint hint of morning painted the eastern horizon with various shades of red, from palest pink to deepest crimson. Clouds swirled, dark and foreboding in the gray sky, warning of more sleet and snow.

Elizabeth had sensed a winter storm brewing for days. She was never wrong about her weather forecasts. And she was never wrong in her premonitions. That's what bothered her. The stranger had invaded her thoughts months ago, and no matter how hard she tried to shake him, she couldn't. The first time he had come to her in a night dream. She had awakened from a deep sleep, trembling from the intensity of the vision. She had seen his hands. Big, strong hands-covered with blood. And then she'd seen his stunned face. Those fierce masculine features. Those amber eyes. She had tried to connect with his feelings, but without success. Who was this man? she'd wondered. Where was he? And why was she dreaming of him?

There was only one man in her life, if you didn't count O'Grady, a friend of her aunt Margaret's who did odd jobs around the greenhouses and kept her supplied in firewood for the long winter months high in the Georgia mountains. Sam Dundee had been her stepfather's younger brother, and when her parents had died in an automobile accident while she'd been a child, Sam had become her legal guardian. As much as she loved Sam and he her, the love they shared was platonic, the deep care and concern of family.

So there had been no one. Not in her bed. Not in her heart. Not until the past few months when she had been unable to control the visions of a tormented man pacing back and forth inside a cage. She had wanted to comfort him, but she couldn't. She could not reach him, no matter how hard she tried. Her telepathic abilities had always been somewhat untutored, not nearly as finely honed as her clairvoyant and precognitive powers, but there was more to it than that. This man, this tortured stranger, shielded his emotions, keeping everyone out, including Elizabeth.

Since childhood she'd known she was different. Her mother and stepfather had brought her to Sequana Falls, deep in the north Georgia mountains, home to her great-aunt, who also possessed psychic abilities and was the only one who'd ever been able to understand the soul-felt pain Elizabeth endured because of her powers.

Except for a brief sojourn from her mountain retreat to attend college, Elizabeth secluded herself from the world. Her abilities to predict the future, to foresee forthcoming events and read minds created problems for her from which not even Sam Dundee, with all his macho strength and loving concern, could protect her.

Cloistering herself away from the world had helped her live a somewhat normal life. She had sworn, after the terrors of living away from Sequana Falls for three years to acquire a college degree while still a teenager, that nothing and no one could ever persuade her to leave her sanctuary again.

Elizabeth allowed the hot coffee to warm her mouth before traveling downward, creating a soft heat within her body. She breathed in the fresh, crisp air-unpolluted mountain air, air closer to the heavens, as if it mingled with God's breath.

She tried to keep her eyes open, tried to focus on the snow-laden trees in the forest surrounding her. But the images formed in her mind, forcing her to see them, whether she wanted to or not. Darkness enveloped her. Night. Tonight! The stranger was running. Running in the freezing sleet, his feet weighted down by the heaviness of the packed, frozen snow beneath him. He slipped, righted himself, ran more slowly. Then he slipped again, lost his balance and fell into a snowdrift.

The cup in Elizabeth's hand trembled, sloshing warm coffee over the rim and onto her fingers. Shaking her head, she tried to dislodge the vision, to force the images to stop. She groaned deeply, softly. The pain of seeing the stranger's predicament and being powerless to help him frustrated Elizabeth.

Suddenly she felt MacDatho's cool, damp nose nuzzle the hand she held clutched at her hip. Her thoughts cleared. Nothing but dark clouds and white snow appeared in her line of vision. Turning her head slightly, she looked down at her companion. He gazed up at her with those serene amber eyes of his, as if he, too, had seen exactly what she had seen, as if he knew that a stranger was about to enter their lives.

Running her fingers through his thick winter fur, Elizabeth crooned to the big black animal, reassuring him that she was all right. She had raised MacDatho from a pup, his mother Elspeth, her German shepherd pet of many years, his father a wolf from out of the forest.

"You know, don't you, my fine lad?" Elizabeth said. "He's coming to us. Tonight."

MacDatho made a sound-not a bark, not a growl, just a rumbling sound. An affirmation of his mistress's words. He leaned his head against her leg, allowing her to pet him.

"I don't know what sort of man he is." Elizabeth nudged MacDatho, leading him back inside the cabin. She closed the heavy wooden door, shutting out the cold morning.

A fire blazed brightly in the enormous rock fireplace in the living room. MacDatho followed Elizabeth to the large, sturdy plaid sofa. When she sat, he lay at her feet.

"He's in trouble and he needs me, but that's all I can sense." Elizabeth placed her mug on the rustic table beside the sofa. "I can't read him, Mac. Odd, isn't it? I can read everyone, even Sam some of the time, but I can't get past the barrier this man has put up." Elizabeth was puzzled that she could pick up no more than a tiny fraction of the stranger's thoughts or emotions. Nothing solid. Nothing complete.

Elizabeth curled up on the sofa, bending her knees so she could tuck her feet behind her. For the first time in her life Elizabeth Mallory was afraid of another human being without knowing why. Out there somewhere was a man she didn't know, a man in some sort of trouble, a man making his way to her cabin-to her. For months she had been tormented by images of this man's life. Bits and pieces of loneliness and pain. Fragments of anger and fear. If only he would allow her to see inside, to share what he was feeling. But it was obvious to Elizabeth that he shielded himself from emotions so completely that he never permitted anything or anyone past his protective barriers. Although Elizabeth knew him, would recognize him the moment she saw him, he didn't know her. When they met tonight-and they would meet tonight-he would have no idea that he was more than an invading presence in her life, that he had held a special place in her thoughts for many months, that he had become important to her even though they didn't know each other.

As much as she feared this unknown man, Elizabeth longed for him to enter her life. Anxiety and uncertainty warred with desperate need. Fear battled desire. Dread fought with longing. Elizabeth closed her eyes. The moment she envisioned his hard, lean lips forming a strangled cry and heard him pray for help, she knew she was this man's only hope-this lonely and unloved outcast.

Slouched over in the seat, his shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, Reece Landry screamed silently at the injustice that had brought him to this point in his life. He'd been screaming for months, but no one had heard him.

He had never pretended to be a saint, never considered himself a good man, and he was guilty of many sins and a few crimes. But he was innocent of the murder that had placed him in this sheriff's car, on this Georgia highway in the middle of a once-in-a-decade winter storm, being taken to Habersham County, to Alto, Georgia, to be locked away inside Arrendale Correctional Institute for the rest of his life.