In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite) (2 page)

“Do you want me to—?”
Please say no
.

“Yes.” The single word seemed wrenched from her.

Damn
. “Stand closer to the chair,” he ordered, then pulled the coffee table aside, wincing. He examined her shoulder more closely to be certain, his stomach a knot of tension. He turned to the boy, still standing beside them.

“I’m going to move your mom’s shoulder. It’s going to hurt,” he explained. “She might…shout.”
Or faint
. Hell, if she fainted, he’d have to wait here until she came around.

Bracing himself, with his legs apart for balance, he touched her gently. She grimaced. “I’ll be careful,” he said in a whisper. He let his fingers drift down the slick smoothness of her wet arm to her elbow, comforting her.

“Heck of a storm,” he said to distract her. He kept talking, paying little attention to what he said, concentrating on a reassuring tone.

Damn
, but he did not want to do this. She must have heard his in-drawn breath an instant before he pushed with one hand and pulled with the other. The shoulder aligned itself with a nasty sound. She cried out, her eyes tearing, but held still. He cupped the joint to make sure it was back in place, and somehow held on to her until she lowered herself onto the chair.

Suddenly, the room started to spin and his vision darkened.

Ah, hell
.

The last thing he saw as he clutched at the edges of the blackening abyss was the woman’s wide, whiskey-colored eyes.

Chapter 2

Good God. He’d fainted!

Abby Price’s shock at the flash of intense pain in her shoulder was quickly eclipsed by utter surprise. The stranger had dropped like a stone and lay unconscious at her feet. Good thing he’d bent to help her into the chair. If he’d fallen from a standing position, he’d surely have gotten a concussion when his head hit the floor.

First-aid experience, my foot
. If he fainted whenever he helped someone,
he
was the one who needed first aid. Sure, the sound of her shoulder popping back into place had made Abby queasy, but if he’d done this before, he’d known what to expect. What if she’d been bleeding?

She shook her head and took a mental step back.

Instead of disparaging his first-aid abilities, she should be thankful he’d known how to help her.

“Mommy?” Cole asked, staring down at the man.

“What, baby?”

“He fell down. Can we pick him up?”

She tried rotating her shoulder, and sucked in a hiss of pain.
Functional but sore
. She’d never be able to lift anything heavy, let alone a man who stood at least six feet. “No, we’ll just make him comfortable until he wakes up.”

“Why’d he go to sleep?”

“He fai—Um, he…must be tired.” There was no reason not to tell Cole the truth, but somehow she thought this man, with his intense, angular features and take-charge attitude, wouldn’t like anyone to know that he’d fainted.

“Oh.” Her son stared down at the stranger, then back at her as if he didn’t believe her.

“From carrying me, probably.”
Good grief
. Now she was making excuses for him. “Go get a pillow from my room. We’ll make him comfortable until he wakes up from his nap.”

As soon as Cole left, she felt misgivings creep in. What if he was faking? Her late husband had always told her to be careful, and here she’d let a total stranger into the house. One who’d nearly run her over.

Ready to run and careful not to get too close, she nudged him with her foot.
Nothing
. He just lay there. She tried again, gingerly using her foot to lift his arm. Again, nothing.

Stop, think
, she told herself. He’d almost hit her with his car, but he’d stopped to help.
Have a little faith
. Not everyone lied.

She waited a minute, barely breathing. He didn’t move.

Still prepared to bolt, she knelt, watching him closely, and shifted until her knees were next to him—John, he’d said. He lay on his back, his legs bent to one side, his head turned to the other, arms at his sides. Reaching with her good arm, she pulled at his wet blue jeans until his legs were reasonably straight. His bare feet rested against one of the end tables.

Now for his head. He had a bruise on his forehead, but he couldn’t have gotten it from hitting the floor. Maybe he’d hit the windshield when he’d gone over the embankment. She took in the days’ growth of beard, his short, disheveled hair, the lines of exhaustion that bracketed his mouth.

He looked like trouble. Rough and disreputable.

More than likely he’d been in a fight. She still had reservations, but she reminded herself that he’d helped her when he could have kept going. And Cole had trusted him, talking easily to him. Abby couldn’t remember the last time her son had done that with a stranger. Especially a man.

Thunder rumbled close by and the power went off with a bang, cocooning them in sudden, startling darkness.

“Mommy!” Cole’s cry came from the direction of the hallway.

She sprang to her feet and felt her way through the living room, walking toward him. “I’m coming, baby,” she said, feeling her way around the furniture. A bolt of lightning lit the room. Cole stood beside the easy chair, wide-eyed, clutching a pillow. She bent and hugged him, her shoulder weak and throbbing. “Let’s get my flashlight.”

Holding him close, she walked down the hall to her room and got the flashlight she kept in her bedside table drawer, then headed back to the living room. There, she grabbed the pillow from the easy chair where she’d left it, then lit some candles and placed two on the coffee table.

The stranger, John, hadn’t moved and still looked horribly uncomfortable. The dim light made him look paler, drawn. She knelt with the pillow, and reached for him.

The loud peal of the telephone made her jump, the movement jarring her aching shoulder. Placing the pillow under his head, she got up to answer. “Hello?”

“Abby?”

Hurrying to grab Cole by the hand as he reached down to touch the stranger’s windbreaker, she said, “Yes?”

“It’s Sam O’Neal.”

“Oh, I didn’t recognize your voice.” Sam was a veterinarian and a friend of her late father’s.

“Must be the static. You need to report it if it continues.”

“I will.” She paused while a particularly loud spat of static blocked the line.

“Petunia give you a hard time goin’ into the corral?” he asked.

Petunia was the neighbor’s bull she was boarding. Sam had stitched the animal up after a nasty encounter with a fence a few days back, and the bull hadn’t liked that one bit.

“No, he was good this time. I put Buck in his stall so there weren’t any distractions.” Buck, her quarter horse, never gave her trouble. “The power just went off. Is that bad for the antibiotics?”

“What?” Sam raised his voice over the interference.

“Power’s off at the barn and the workshop!” she shouted back. The crackling on the line stopped abruptly.

“No problem. I only had a couple more doses of antibiotics stored in the workshop refrigerator,” Sam said, lowering his voice as the static disappeared. “Nothing else will get ruined. Don’t know when the power company will get out there to work on the lines, though. There was a tornado up toward Mission Ridge. Don’t be surprised if you see deputies or Search and Rescue out tonight. They’re going around checking on folks. The weather report says the worst of the front has moved on, but there could be another storm coming.”

“Sam—”

“That vet”—more crackling sounds broke up his words—“from Jackson County—”

“What?”

“New vet’s on his way,” Sam shouted. “The one I told you was helping me for a couple of weeks. He’s supposed to be here tonight or tomorrow.”

Abby glanced at the man on the floor. Was he Sam’s new vet?

“Oh, but Sam—”

Static covered his next words. When it passed, he was saying, “—a lookout for him. His name’s Pete. I told him to go to your barn and take a look at Petunia. Glad you got him penned. Wouldn’t want this young man to run into that bull in the pasture.”

“Sure, but I think he’s—”

“Thanks, Abby. Be careful tonight. I’m at the Whites’ farm. One of the mares is having some trouble. Gotta go. Ida’s calling me.”

Darn
. He hadn’t heard her, she realized, when dead air filled the line. She hung up the phone, looked up Ida White’s number in the phone book, and quickly dialed back, but no one answered.

Sam’s new veterinarian? Maybe that explained the man’s presence. Not a very auspicious beginning to his career. She wondered what Sam would say when she told him his vet had fainted at the sound of her shoulder popping back in place. She almost smiled.

“I’m hungry, Mommy.”

“Let me make…him more comfortable.” She couldn’t make herself call him John. He just didn’t look like someone named John. Or Pete, for that matter.

Squatting next to the stranger, she reached out with her left hand and cupped his head. His wet hair felt slick against her fingers. She scooted closer in order to turn his head to a more comfortable position on the pillow. That’s when she felt them.

The scars
.

Small raised ridges of smooth flesh just behind his right ear. She jerked her hand away.

Oh, my God!

Her heart pounded, her breath caught, certain knowledge crashing over her.

No, his name wasn’t John, and he wasn’t Sam’s new hire
.

“I’m
hungry
, Mommy,” Cole repeated from behind her.

She looked up at her son, her thoughts whirling, then back down at the man on her floor.
It had been over a year. She’d quit expecting him
. She’d decided her late husband, Wade, had lied about him, just as he’d lied about everything else.

Her fingers trembled as she reached out again, needing to verify that the scars really existed. Flying glass, Wade had said.
Unless that was a lie, too
. In the flickering candlelight, almost afraid to know, afraid to wake the stranger before she knew for certain, she turned his head and felt along the strong angles of his face, searching the silky softness of his dark, wet hair. He muttered something and she sprang back, feeling like some sort of voyeur.

His lashes fluttered, casting shadows on his cheeks, but he didn’t open his eyes. Taking a deep breath, she reached out again and felt behind his right ear, just at the edge of his hairline.

There
. The ridged scars. By feel, she counted six. More on his neck. Probably on his shoulder, too.
Smooth and familiar
.

Just like Wade’s.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she eased his head back.

Dark hair
, Wade had said. She couldn’t remember the color of the man’s eyes, and she wasn’t up to prying open his lids to see if they were dark brown. He was bigger than she’d expected, but then Wade had always thought of everyone as smaller than himself.

As she straightened, careful not to jar her sore shoulder, she spotted something tucked under his left arm.
A gun
. In a black nylon holster. His windbreaker must have shifted open when he fell. She hadn’t seen the weapon before.

Quickly, she pulled the jacket closed, hiding the gun, hoping Cole hadn’t seen it.

“He’s sleepy,” Cole said, dragging out the last word.

“Yes.” Abby cleared her throat. “Yes, he is.”

“Can we wake him up so we can eat?”

She nearly laughed. But if she did, she might dissolve into hysterics. How did you wake a person who’d fainted?

Cold water
.

She jumped up, grabbed the flashlight, and ran into the laundry room, pulling Cole with her.

“Mommy!” he protested.

Frantic, she grabbed a plastic basin, then stopped herself.
Think!
She couldn’t just toss cold water on the man. Instead, she pulled a washcloth from the dryer, wet it with cold water, and dragged Cole back into the living room. She bent over the stranger and placed the cold washcloth on his forehead.

Nothing happened. He didn’t even flinch.

A shiver made her stomach turn. He hadn’t just fainted. Something was wrong. Had he hurt his head when he fell? How could she tell?

She had no idea. Teaching fourth grade had taught her how to deal with cuts, scrapes, and bruises, but this could be bad. She had to find out what to do.
Sam
. He was a vet, not a doctor, but he’d still know what to do.

Then she remembered the gun.

“Cole, can you get me…a Band-Aid, please?”

“Why?”

She nearly yelled at him in frustration, so tense she’d fisted her hands. She replied tightly, “So I can put it on his forehead.” She handed him the flashlight.

“’Kay.” And off he ran.

Quickly, she lifted the windbreaker and pulled the gun from the holster. She’d forgotten how much those things could weigh. Now, for a safe place to hide it.

The closet
. Up high. Behind the Christmas decorations.

Standing at the man’s side after stashing the gun securely, she watched his chest move up and down. He was still unconscious. It worried her more than she cared to admit. She needed him awake and coherent.

She had to know if he was the one
.

She needed answers to questions that had been plaguing her ever since Wade died. And if this man was who she thought he was, he was the only one who could give her those answers.

She moved closer and squatted again. With trembling fingers, she felt his jacket pockets for a wallet.
Empty
. Kneeling for leverage, she pulled him toward her with her good arm, rolling him slightly. She slipped a wallet from his jeans’ back pocket, then let him roll back. Afraid he’d wake up, she waited a few seconds before opening the wallet.

His Arizona driver’s license proclaimed him to be Adam Foster from Phoenix. He had some cash, a couple of receipts. Not satisfied, she eyed the backpack he’d left by the door. Before changing her mind, she sprang up and grabbed the bag. Opening it after a quick glance back at him, just in case, she rummaged through a few items of clothing.

She found another gun. And ammunition—lots of it. And another wallet with credit cards. One read Jonathan Walker, another Gary Brown, another Matthew Anderson. There was also lots of cash. More than anyone would normally carry.

Abby shivered, struggling to understand.
This was exactly what Wade had hidden from her
. How he lived. Multiple identities.
Multiple lives
.

Only one of which he’d shared with her.

But she couldn’t afford to go there, not now. She had to pull herself together and deal with this situation, with this man.

Quickly, she hid the second gun in the closet with the first.

“SpongeBob!” Cole shouted, bouncing the flashlight beam around the living room.

“Not so loud, honey.” The man couldn’t hear them, but somehow it seemed wrong to be so noisy. Or maybe she felt guilty for going through his things.

“Can I put the Band-Aid on him?” Cole asked, still too loud.

“He doesn’t need—um, I’ll do it.” God, she was going to put a SpongeBob Band-Aid on a total stranger.

A dangerous stranger, if she was right about who he was. But one she desperately needed to speak with.

“’Kay.”

She knelt again, pulled away the washcloth, considered for a second, and secured the Band-Aid over his bruise. Then she placed the cool cloth back on his forehead, afraid that he would react.

His eyelids didn’t even flutter. No way was this right. He needed help. What if he died right here on the floor?