Natalie waited, aware that the prickling had traveled from her neck to the back of her scalp now, and her heart was suddenly racing. It was a full-body scream of alarm, urging her to run. She managed to fight off the urge, but did turn and continue to the bend that led to the seventeenth hole. She was moving as quickly as she could, though, while lugging the heavy gas can, and her gaze was continually shooting to the side, scanning the trees as she went.
It was the sudden soft hiss of a voice that finally broke her last nerve. Giving up any attempt to seem unafraid and calm, Natalie broke into a run, the gas can banging against her leg as she went. But the rustling in the woods was keeping abreast of her and actually sounded like it was getting closer, as if whoever was in the woods was moving out of them after her.
Dropping the can with a yelp at this realization, Natalie put on a burst of speed and charged around the bend, looking back toward the woods now. That was a mistake. In her panic, she’d forgotten about the pond just around the bend, a trap before the seventeenth hole. Many golfers lost their balls in its depths. Tonight, it caught her as well.
Looking back as she was, Natalie didn’t see it and recalled the presence of the pond only when the ground suddenly slanted downward at a sharp pitch under her feet. She swung her head around at once, briefly noted the dark shape of a person on the other side of the pond as she tried to stop her forward motion, but was distracted by cold water splashing over her feet as she tried to stumble to a halt. Her efforts were made useless when she lost her footing and tumbled forward, her arms pinwheeling. Natalie felt the water closing over her just before pain exploded in her forehead and the world around her faded to black.
Valerian had just reached the golf cart when a yelp from behind had him turning to look around. His attention was immediately caught by the running woman coming around the bend from the eighteenth hole. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but that yelp had sounded alarmed and the woman—Natalie, he realized—appeared to be in a full-blown panic as she charged forward. She was also looking back the way she’d come as if someone was chasing her.
Concerned, Valerian started around the large water feature between them, expecting her to run around it to him for aid with whatever trouble had come up. It actually took him several steps before he realized that she wasn’t swerving to avoid the pond. In fact, it didn’t appear to him as if Natalie even realized she was about to sprint into the water feature. Even as he realized this and opened his mouth to shout a warning, she hit the part where the land slanted downward toward the pond. Natalie turned her head then, her gaze briefly meeting his before her attention was taken up with her efforts to remain on her feet as she careened into the water. She was obviously trying to stop herself—her arms were pinwheeling and alarm was blooming on her face—but then she suddenly seemed to stumble and did a belly flop into the shallow water.
Wincing at the slapping sound as her body met the water’s surface, Valerian slowed, trying to think how to handle the situation, because he was quite sure she would probably be embarrassed that he’d witnessed this. He pondered the matter for a couple of steps and then realized that Natalie wasn’t bouncing back to her feet and wading out of the water as he would have expected. In fact, she appeared to be floating, as if she—
Cursing, Valerian burst into a dead run at immortal speed. He charged around the pond to where she’d fallen, and waded in after her, scooping her out of the water a few bare seconds after she went in. Even so, his heart was pounding like a drum, panic racing through his body. That panic didn’t ease when Valerian noted the wound on her forehead as he carried her quickly back to the grassy bank. Laying her on her back there, he knelt to press his ear to her chest.
The relief that seeped through him at the sound of her heart still beating and her lungs taking in oxygen left him weak for a moment. He’d got to her quickly enough that she hadn’t even taken in water. He sat up and looked over her face and the bleeding wound on her forehead, trying to sort out where she’d got it. There had been no one near her when he’d seen her going into the water, or even when he’d seen her running, but he glanced around now anyway, using his night vision to pierce the dark trees. He thought he caught a glimpse of a figure moving away quickly through the line of woods, but it was such a quick flash before the evergreens and oaks obscured it that he wasn’t sure it hadn’t just been a branch moving.
Valerian peered down at Natalie again, gathered her in his arms, and stood. He wasn’t sure how she’d been injured. Even if there had been someone in the woods, they hadn’t been close enough to hit her, and he hadn’t heard a gunshot or anything. Besides, her injury didn’t look like a bullet wound, more a jagged split, as if she’d hit her head on something. Perhaps in the water, Valerian thought as he headed for the eighteenth hole.
He spotted the gas tank a moment later. Valerian peered at the red can on its side in the grass, then took another look around, wondering why she’d dropped it and taken off running. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could answer that question and he supposed he’d have to wait for Natalie to wake up to solve the mystery.
Leaving that worry for now, he hurried on his way again, eager to get Natalie back to the clubhouse so that he could examine her wound. Then he’d have to take her to the hospital. Mortals were an odd breed, hearty in some ways and fragile in others. He wasn’t taking any chances with this woman. He’d stop in the clubhouse to find a blanket or something to wrap her in to keep her warm, and then drive her to the hospital in his pickup and—
“Shit!” Valerian muttered suddenly, coming to an abrupt halt. His keys were still in the golf cart. Half turning, he glanced back toward the seventeenth hole, but he was almost to the clubhouse now. He could have her inside warming up in seconds.
Turning abruptly, Valerian continued along the path, thinking he’d get her inside, find something to wrap her in to warm her, then run back for his keys. Once back he’d pull his pickup as close to the door as he could and then go in to get her. It seemed like a solid plan to him and would have worked beautifully if a huge polar bear hadn’t charged at him the moment he stepped out of the trees at the end of the eighteenth hole and started across the yard toward the clubhouse door.
He heard a woman whisper-hiss, “Sinbad, no,” just before one hundred and fifty pounds of white fur launched itself at him. Valerian barely had a chance to brace himself before two huge paws landed, one on his chest and the other on the arm he had around Natalie’s upper body. A long tongue then began to wash the face of the unconscious woman he was carrying.
“Sinbad! Get—Oh my God! What happened? Get down, Sinbad. Down! Is Natalie okay? What happened?”
Since the animal wasn’t reacting at all to the almost whispered orders of the young woman rushing toward him with a cute little blonde cherub on her hip, Valerian took a moment to scowl at the beast and growled, “Down. Now,” in a calm commanding tone.
When what turned out to be a very fluffy white dog immediately dropped back to all four paws on the ground, he nodded at the animal and then turned his attention to the young woman as she reached him. She was now clutching the sleeping child almost protectively to her chest, her wide anxious eyes shifting between him and Natalie.