2nd Sneak Peek: Call of the Whisperwind

1883 Santa Fe, New Mexico

 The day dawned with its usual indigo brilliance, shards of blue puncturing the sky. The quiet of the early morning ebbed as the light cast its glow.  Watercolor rays radiated down on the crimson earth, where the vast desert wilderness meets the sky. Warm dry breezes carried the scents of chaparral and sage floating down the town’s streets and through windows open in the early autumn air, the last vestige of summer.

Rachel Bradshaw tosses and turns in the shadowed morning light;  a cold, clammy sweat covers her, making her nightgown stick to her pale skin, plastering her dark brown hair to her scalp; she bites her lip fiercely and lets out a muffled scream. She sees her husband, Matt, lying in a dank pool of his own blood. Nausea roils in the pit of her stomach. Bile creeps up and burns her throat as her heart races frantically. Suddenly she can’t breathe and gasps for air.

Matt reached over and shook her shoulder. “Wake up, Rachel, wake up.”

She opened her eyes to see Matt leaning over her, his eyes pinched with worry, his brow furrowed.

“Same dream?” he asked, running his hand over her damp hair, pulling it off of her face.  

She nodded, blinking herself awake. “It was so real.” She swallowed hard. “You were dying.” Tears of terror filled her emerald green eyes, turning them the dark shade of a forest at dusk.

He took her in his arms and stroked her head to calm her down.

“It’s all right. I’m fine. It was only a bad dream.”