The Fall of Shane MacKade by Nora Roberts

of the farmhouse came across a fallow field that smelled strongly of manure. She didn’tmind the scent, in fact it intrigued her. But she was careful to watch where she walked.
    It was a peaceful scene—blue sky, puffy, harmless clouds, an old spreading willow gracefully draped near a narrow creek. At least she assumed there was a creek to her right, as the sound of gurgling water came across clearly. She saw stands of corn, row after row spearing up to the sun. Fields of grain going gold. There was a big weathered barn with those odd windows that looked like eyes, and a pale blue tower she assumed was a silo.
    More silos, sheds, paddocks and pens. Cows, she thought with the ridiculous grin of the urbanite at the sight of them grazing in a green field with rocks scattered gray throughout the pasture.
    From a distance it was a postcard, a quiet and remote rural scene that looked as though it were always just so. And the house, she thought, at the core of it.
    Her heart was beating fast and sharply before she realized it. She stopped where she was, breathing carefully as she studied the house.
    It was stone, probably from the same quarry as the inn. In this building the stone looked less elegant, more sturdy and simple. The windows were boxy and plain in the two-story structure, and the wide rear porch was a faded gray wood. She wondered if there was a front porch, and assumed there was. There would be a rocker on it, perhaps two. There would be an overhang for shade and to keep the rain off during a storm so that you could sit out and watch the clouds roll in.
    Through a buzzing in her head, she heard the barking of dogs, but it barely registered. She studied the chimneys, then the gray shutters that she was sure were functional, rather than merely decorative. She could almost picture herself reaching out, drawing them in to secure the houseagainst the night’s chill—stoking the kitchen fire so that there would still be embers in the morning.
    For a moment, the house was so clear, almost stark in its lines and colors against the sky, it might have been a photograph. Then she blinked and let out the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.
    That was it, of course, she realized. A photograph. Regan had described the farm to her, given her such a detailed picture of it, Rebecca decided it was her own memory of that, and her ability to project and retain, that made it all so familiar. So eerily familiar.
    She laughed at herself and continued to walk, hesitating only briefly when two large yellow dogs bounded toward her. Regan had told her Shane had dogs, the parents of Regan’s golden retriever. Rebecca didn’t mind animals. Actually, she rather liked them, in a distant sort of way. But, obviously, these dogs had no intention of keeping their distance. They raced around her, barking, tongues lolling, tails batting back and forth in a flurry of fur.
    â€œNice dogs.” At least she hoped they were and held out a testing hand. When her fingers were sniffed, then licked lavishly, rather than taken off at the knuckle, she relaxed. “Nice dogs,” she repeated more firmly, and drummed up the nerve to rub each yellow head. “Nice, big dogs. Fred and Ethel, right?”
    In agreement, each dog gave a throaty bark and raced back toward the house. Taking that as an invitation, Rebecca followed.
    Pigs, she thought, and stopped by the pen to study them clinically. They weren’t nearly as sloppy as she’d imagined. But they were certainly larger than she’d imagined a pig to be. When they grunted and snorted and crowded near the fence where she stood, she grinned. She was bendingdown to stick a hand through the slats of the fence to test the texture of pig hide when a voice stopped her.
    â€œThey’ll bite.”
    Her hand snapped back out like a rocket. There was Shane, standing two yards away, carrying a very large wrench. Her mind went utterly blank. It wasn’t fear,