Laurie swallowed back her fears. She blinked several times to avoid tears. What if Mimi was wrong this time? “Have there been a lot of natural disasters in the area over the years?”
Corbin frowned. “No. Not that I recall. Not before the earthquake and then the strange happenings at the casino site. I wouldn’t really call that event a natural disaster. It’s hard to say how much of that problem was human involvement and how much of it was Nature trying to keep that casino from being finished.”
“And then the snowstorm the other day.”
He shrugged. “Babe, I hardly call that a disaster.”
She nodded, still thinking about the types of things she’d witnessed and learned about.
“What are you thinking?”
She couldn’t answer the question. She wasn’t entirely sure herself. There was no way to put her thoughts into words. What she knew was her gut told her something huge was imminent. Why? What? And what was she supposed to do about it?
She stepped out of Corbin’s grasp and rubbed her arms. “I don’t know. Gut feeling. Something’s off. And I get the impression I have some part in whatever Nature is warning about.”
“Warning? You think there’s another storm coming? Or an earthquake?” He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward a chair next to his desk. “Sit.”
As she lowered herself into her seat, he did the same behind his desk.
She shook her head. “It’s not that specific. It’s more of an upheaval in the air. It’s like the oxygen is thicker or something.” She sighed. “I know that sounds absurd. It’s the best I can do.”
“Like that feeling you have in the calm before a storm or in the eye of a storm, yeah?”
She smiled. “Yes. Like that. The still, threatening thickness. Exactly that.”
Corbin looked out the window. “Well, I don’t see evidence of any storm, so we should be okay for now, yeah?”
She shuddered. “There was no warning about the snowstorm last week either. It came out of nowhere. Even I didn’t have more than a few minutes of intuition. Although, it could be argued that I had only been in town a few days. Perhaps my skills weren’t quite honed yet.”
“That could make sense. Do you feel like your abilities are in full swing now?”
She shrugged. “No idea. I don’t have a way to compare. But from my conversation with Melinda and Mimi, I’m catching up fast.”
Suddenly, Laurie’s hair stood on end, goose bumps rising on her arms. She lifted her gaze a second before a man with an exasperated expression and one hand rubbing his forehead stepped from a large office along one side of the room and cleared his throat. “I need every man on deck. We have a problem.”
Corbin glanced at Laurie, and she gripped the arms of her chair with so much pressure her fingers hurt. “That’s my boss, Josiah Richards. The sheriff.”
She let her gaze roam back to the sheriff.
“There’s a geyser on the northwest corner of the reservation. It’s spewing hundreds of feet into the air and freezing and making it impossible to pass on the highway between here and Cambridge. The fire department’s on the way. I need six of you to go assist.”
Laurie froze in her seat. Another crazy unexplained incident?
She grabbed Corbin’s arm. “A geyser? Is that a natural occurrence? Or manmade?”
“Should be natural. But I wouldn’t rule out anything today.”
The sheriff wove through the desks of deputies until he arrived at Corbin’s side. He smiled at Laurie, though his brow remained wrinkled in concern. “Sorry. We haven’t had a chance to meet. I’m Josiah. We’ll have to catch up later.”
He turned toward Corbin and set a hand on his shoulder. “I need you to go.” His look was pointed.
He knew. Laurie realized he knew more than the average human or shifter in the area. Corbin must have explained things to him or at least told him about her and their unconventional mating.
“Of course.” Corbin stood.
Richards switched his gaze to Laurie. “You’re welcome to tag along.” His face was still tight with concern.
Was he asking her to go along or just being polite?
Suddenly she wanted to get a reading from him. It wasn’t something she’d ever considered before recent history. As far as she knew, in the past, she’d never had the ability to sense anything about people she touched. But after meeting Pete, she was hyper aware of the possibilities.
And apparently Mimi and Melinda could both get a vibe about people by touching them—often to their chagrin.
She nodded at the sheriff. “I’ll follow Corbin, if you don’t mind.”