The room was dark, obscured by shadows painting the wall with horrific shapes and ghoulish images. Craig Wesley knew they were silhouettes of tree branches beyond the window. They masked the full moon rather well considering their lack of leaves. But knowing they were only shadows and acknowledging it were two completely different things. Everyone was afraid of something. Craig wasn't too keen on complete and total darkness. He thanked God for that silver orb in the sky casting eerie black splashes on the wall.

The pillow was lumpy, and the couch even more so. How did anyone get a good nights sleep on this thing? He punched the pillow molding it into a better shape.

Laying back down again, Craig realized that the room beyond the closed door in the Horton Cabin was quiet. He sighed with relief. At least he didn't have to listen to those two mating like wild puppies. He strained his ears as he angled them toward the door. Silence.

Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe if he was lucky he still had a chance with her. Yeah, right, and maybe purple pigs could fly.

The ringing of his cell phone pierced the darkness emitting a shrill tone loud enough to wake the dead. Craig startled by the shrilling, stumbled over the coffee table and a footstool in his rush to shut the damn thing up. It took him a minute to locate his jacket and another to find the zipper where the phone was hidden. In the nearly dark void of the room, this was quite a tricky task.

"All right. What?!" he said sharply, louder than a whisper, softer than a shout.

After retrieving the phone from the confines of his windbreaker, he turned his back to the bedroom door so his curt whispers wouldn't disturb the two love birds.

The caller was Nancy, his wife. Even the thought of her as his wife brought a girgle of laughter into his throat. Wife, that was a laugh. Not in the biblical sense, anyway. Not in any sense other than name, really.

Now as he stared off beyond the cabin listening to her moaning about her daddy, he watched the rain pelt harder against the front window. Lightening traveled across the sky in steady horizontal streaks and thunder boomed. He counted off the seconds to see how far away the storm was. Five seconds later he heard the thunderclap.

Five miles.

He hoped the rain was traveling in the opposite direction because he was tired of mud slicked anything. Just remembering chasing Carrie outside the cabin, the feel of her in his arms and then Mike ruining the moment was more than he could bear.

Nancy's shrill tone brought him back into the conversation. What had ever possessed him to marry her in the first place? Down deep he knew the answer. He knew the reason why -- money. Pure and simple. He didn't have it and her daddy did. He had been broke and desperate back then. So willing to sell his soul to the devil to get what he wanted -- to be a doctor. And being a doctor meant money for schooling. In the end his passion for medicine came at a high price. He hadn't needed to sell his soul to the devil. He sold it to Nancy's daddy instead.

He had regretted the decision ever since.

"Craig?" The incoherent whisper startled him and he closed his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

"Carrie." He snapped the phone closed without saying goodbye to Nancy, turned it off and detached the battery. As he stuffed the disassembled contraption into his windbreaker pocket, he smiled broadly in Carrie's direction. It was the type of smile that masked true emotions. No one needed to know what a shambles his life was in so he played it cool and dished out the Wesley charm. "What are you doing up?"

"I thought I heard something out here. Some sort of commotion." Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She must have literally forced herself out of bed. Yawning deeply, she steadied herself by holding onto the arm of the couch.

"Nothing out here but little ole me. Hope I didn't wake you when I fell over the coffee table."

Craig sat down on the couch which was now his make-shift bed and glanced up into Carrie's face. She was half in and half out of shadows. A tint of gloss remained on her lips and the moon's radiance shone brightly on the half of her face he could see.

"You look tired. Maybe you should go back to bed." He refrained from saying 'with Mike." Somehow his mind hadn't yet accepted the two of them as a couple yet. So what if she dragged him across half of Illinois in order to find him. She was a Brady. She'd do that for anyone. Him included.

"I will. In a minute." She sat down on the couch next to him. "I never thanked you for helping me... With finding Mike, I mean."

"Was that what I was doing? I thought I'd been hijacked and forced to find lover boy." He smiled and his teeth sparkled even in the darkness.

"I know," she said stifling a yawn. I'm really sorry about that. "I'll be better next time." Her voice murmured something else softly but whatever she'd meant to tell him was inaudible. She gave into her complete exhaustion and rested her head against his firm chest. Craig cupped her head brushing a stray blonde hair from her face.

So beautiful and so in love with someone else.

"Oh, Carrie," he whispered. "Why is this happening to me? Like I need you to complicate my life even further."

Mike nearly rocketed out of bed as the dream abruptly came to an end. A dream? It was all a dream? He let loose with a heavy sigh and collapsed back onto the comfort of the down pillows.

A dream. Thank God.

He brushed his hand over to Carrie's side of the bed. All that greeted him was a mass of cold, rumpled sheets. He sat up again, this time with an intention of getting out of bed. As he found his balance, Mike fumbled toward the door and cracked it open slowly. Somehow the hinge which always managed to squeak, now remained silent. His eyes traveled across the room searching out anything in the darkness that appeared human-like.

He found two figures in the darkness.

It was Carrie and Craig. It had to be. Who else was in the cabin? Silently he watched as she leaned her head forward and he angled his head down.

Craig was going to kiss her! And Carrie wasn't fighting him off tooth and nail. What was going on?