A Fierce Archer (Clan Ross Book 6) by Hildie McQueen (great novels TXT) 📕

“That is strange,” he said as he turned. His crystal blue eyes met hers, and for a split second, she felt the urge to go to his side, to take his hand in hers, but she refrained. “I’ll go down and take a look.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to check right now. If you have things you need to do, I can wait.”

“No. It’s not a problem at all. Like I said, it’s part of my job. I help Phil keep this place up. Plus, it’s supposed to get pretty cold. It may be springtime, but it still gets cold here on the coast at night. I don’t want you going without any heat. I’ll be right back.”

Emily felt more chilled by the minute and decided it was a good idea to let him take a look. “Okay. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s not a problem,” Liam told her as he headed out of her front door and down the long, narrow hallway of the building.

Emily was now standing alone in her flat, yet she didn’t feel alone. A disturbing sensation pricked her skin. Sinister, unseen, cold eyes watched her. A chill shook her again as she closed her front door, its icy grip closing in, suffocating her. “Go away,” her voice wobbled. It gripped onto her soul tighter. “Leave me alone.” She felt the entity release her, allowing her to take a lung full of air. She could breathe freely. For now.

***

Liam ran down the steps to the basement, his heart raced, and his breathing erratic. His rational mind told him it was impossible. He had never met her before. And if he ever had, he was sure he would have remembered. He could never forget her face. He’d been seeing it in his dreams for years.

He clasped his hands and brought them up to his mouth. His thoughts raced. She was beyond beautiful. Liam had been around beautiful women his entire life, but Emily captivated him. The pull he felt toward her was a powerful tethering sensation. As if invisible strings were reaching out and trying desperately to connect. The moment she turned and noticed him walking down the stairs, Liam’s eyes caught hers, and his heart almost stopped.

She was average height, and he towered over her. He knew her head would fit comfortably on his chest under his chin in an embrace. The fantasy washed over him, bringing with it a rush of images from his dreams.

Everything about her was familiar to him. Freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks, while golden bronze ringlets fell loosely around her face and shoulders. A part of him knew how it would feel tangled in his hands. Her eyes were a warm brown, like dark wildflower honey. He wanted to fall into them and knew that in the right light, flecks of gold within them danced in the warm glow.

After taking a few moments to gather himself, he rubbed his hands through his hair. “One thing at a time,” he whispered. His thoughts raced, but he forced himself to focus on his current task at hand.

He walked to the furnace. The thing was ancient. Of course it was. Phil always preferred to repair things rather than replace them. Even when Liam insisted that an appliance needed to be replaced, Phil put up a fight. Liam always chalked up the man’s stubbornness to being old, stuck in his ways. The furnace wasn’t original to the house, but it might as well have been. He was sure they didn’t even make replacement parts for the thing anymore.

He noticed the pilot light was out. Of course he didn’t have anything to relight it with him. Liam turned toward the steps to head upstairs. As he rounded the corner, something caught his attention—a glimpse of a shadow. It happened so quickly, he couldn’t be sure exactly what it was. “Hello?” he called out. “Is anyone down here?” But who would be in the basement? The lower level apartment was unoccupied. It always had been. In fact, Liam had never been inside the apartment. Phil said it was too run down, and he was using it for storage.

Liam walked back to the furnace, a natural reaction he had fine-tuned in his line of work over the years. Never leave a stone unturned. But there was nothing there. No one was in sight, and he could see if anyone was down there with him as there was nowhere to hide. The wooden staircase was the only access to the basement.

An uneasiness came over him, the same foreboding feeling from a few minutes earlier when he stepped away from Emily’s window. It was a queasiness in his stomach that always warned him something was about to happen. He had lived in that house for years, and nothing unexplainable had ever taken place. Still, Liam couldn’t shake his instinct, alerting him that something was amiss. Not sure what to make of what he’d just experienced, Liam headed back upstairs to his flat and grabbed a butane lighter. On his way back to the basement, his thoughts, once again, drifted to Emily and the look of worry on her face.

He was certain her startled reaction was in response to more than just a chill in the air and wondered if she recognized him the way he recognized her. When Liam had turned away from the window, he noticed she was distracted and a little on edge. She jumped when he spoke, and her unease was evident. He had seen that look before but didn’t dare say anything. She was spooked, and the last thing Liam wanted to do was cause her any more alarm. He had to fight the instinct to run to her. The need to wrap his arms around her was overwhelming. He always had control over his emotions, but for whatever reason, the need to care for this woman’s well-being overtook him.

The warm feeling that rushed over him when he entered