I gasped in reaction, my heart jumping into my throat. What if he pulled the trigger? What if it went off the next time he jostled it like that? We were half a mile away from the Danielses’ place and three-quarters of one above my parents’. My cell phone was in my pocket, but I had a feeling he’d shoot me if I reached for it. At this range, I’d be dead before they could get me to a hospital…if they found me.

At least there were other search parties out right now. They’d come at the sound of gunfire.

“There are cougars out here, you know,” he snapped.

Like the one that had mauled his wife fifteen years ago on this very field.

“What are you doing here? You’re trespassing!”

I didn’t bother arguing the trespassing point, since technically, I was. But Dorothy had called in a panic, and I’d immediately headed out to look for Mr. Daniels just like I had a few times in the last month. The gun… Now that had been unexpected.

“I know there are cougars,” I told him with a slight quiver in my voice. “You taught me what to do if I ever ran into one.” I’d been seven years old when he’d pulled aside Sullivan and me for lessons. Naturally, Cam had played the cougar while Alexander watched in quiet judgment.

Cam. My chest tightened in that same physical ache it always did whenever he crossed my mind, even with the present danger. Heck, maybe because of the danger.

“I don’t know you! Stop lying! What do you want here? Why are you on my land? Get out!” He jabbed the gun toward me.

“Okay,” I said with a nod and backed up a step.

“Stop moving!” he screamed, his voice pitching high in alarm. “Don’t speak!”

I halted immediately. He was slipping further and further into the episode, and my mind stopped fighting the possibility that he might shoot me, my muscles locking in paralyzing acceptance.

Movement to my left caught my eye, and I turned my head a fraction of an inch to see the shape of a man only a few arm lengths away, approaching with hands up, palms out. Who was it? Where had he come from?

I couldn’t make out his face beneath the baseball hat, but he was massive, dwarfing my five-foot-four frame as he put himself between Mr. Daniels and me. The broad expanse of his back blocked my entire view.